Chapter 6

Muscles, even in the atmosphere of a Miss Lizzie's rigid discipline, sometimes rebel. The little girl sitting in front of Emmy Lou was given to spasmodic changes of posture, causing unexpected upheavals of Emmy Lou's desk.

On one of these occasions Emmy Lou's ink bottle went over. It was Copy-Book hour. That one's apron, beautiful with much fine ruffling, should be ruined, was a small matter when one's trial-paper had been straight in the path of the flood. Neither was Emmy Lou's condition of digital helplessness to be thought of, although it did seem as if all great Neptune's ocean and more might be needed to make those little fingers white again. Sponges, slate-rags, and neighbourly solicitude did what they could. But the trial-paper was steeped indelibly past redemption.

Still not a word from Miss Lizzie. Only a cold and prolonged survey of the scene, only an entire suspension of action in the Fourth Reader room while Miss Lizzie waited.

At last Emmy Lou was ready to resume work. She raised a timid and deep-dyed hand, and made known her need.

"Please, I have no trial-paper."

Miss Lizzie's lips unclosed. Had she waited for this? "Then," said Miss Lizzie, "you will stay after school."

Emmy Lou's heart burned, the colour slowly left her cheeks.

It was something besides Emmy Lou that looked straight out of Emmy Lou's eyes at Miss Lizzie. It was Judgment.

_Miss Lizzie was not fair._

Emmy Lou did not reach home until dinner was long over. She had first to cover four slips of trial-paper and half a page in her book with upward strokes fine and hair-like, and downward strokes black and heavy. Emmy Lou ate her dinner alone.

At supper she spoke. Emmy Lou generally spoke conclusions and, unless pressed, did not enter into the processes of her reasoning.

"I don't want to go to school any more."

Aunt Cordelia looked shocked. Aunt Louise looked stern. Uncle Charlie looked at Emmy Lou.

"That sounds more natural," said Uncle Charlie, but nobody listened.

"She's been missing," said Aunt Louise.

"She's growing too fast," said Aunt Cordelia, who had just been ripping two tucks out of Emmy Lou's last winter's dress; "she can't be well."

So Emmy Lou was taken to the doctor, who gave her a tonic. And following this, she all at once regained her usual cheerful little state of mind, and expressed no more unwillingness to go to school.

But it was not the tonic.

It was the Green and Gold Book.

Rosalie brought it. It belonged to her and to Alice and to Amanthus.

They lent it to Emmy Lou.

And the glamour opened and closed about Emmy Lou, and she knew--she knew it all--why the hair of Amanthus gleamed, why Alice flitted where others walked, why laughter dwelt in the cheek of Rosalie. The glamour opened and closed about Emmy Lou, and she and Rosalie and Alice and Amanthus moved in a world of their own--the world of the Green and Gold Book, for the Green and Gold Book was "The Book of Fairy Tales."

The strange, the inexplicable, the meaningless, that hitherto one had thought the real--teachers, problems, such--they became the outer world, the things of small matter.

One loved the far corner of the sofa now, with the book in one's lap, with one's hair falling about one's face and book, shutting out the unreal world and its people.

The real world lay between the covers of the Green and Gold Book--the real world and its people.

And the Princess was always Rosalie, and the Prince--ah! the Prince was the Prince. One had met one's Rosalie, but not yet the Prince.

One could not talk of these things except to Rosalie. Hattie would not understand. One was glad when Rosalie told them to Alice and Amanthus, but one could not tell one's self.

And Miss Lizzie? Miss Lizzie had stepped all at once into her proper place. One had not understood before. One would not want Miss Lizzie different. It was right and natural to Miss Lizzie's condition--which condition varied according to the page in the Book, for Miss Lizzie was the Cruel Step-mother, Miss Lizzie was the Wicked Fairy Godmother, Miss Lizzie was the Ogress, the wife of the terrible giant.

One told Rosalie. But Rosalie went even further. Miss Lizzie was the grim and terrible Ogress who dwelt in her lonely castle. True. The school-house was the castle of the Ogress. And the forty little girls in the Fourth Reader were the captives--the captive Princesses--kept by Miss Lizzie until certain tasks were performed.

One looked at Problems differently now. One saw Copy-books through a glamour. They were tasks, and each task done, the nearer release from Miss Lizzie.

Did one fail--?

Emmy Lou held her breath. Rosalie spoke softly: "The lady at the window--her finger at her lips--she had failed--"

Miss Lizzie was the Ogress, and the lady was the Princess--the captive Princess--waiting at the window for release.

And so one played one's part. And so Emmy Lou and Rosalie moved and lived and dreamed in the glamour and the world of the Green and Gold Book.

It stayed in one's desk--sometimes with Alice, or with Amanthus, sometimes with Rosalie. To-day it was with Emmy Lou.

One never read in school. But at recess, on the steps outside the big door, one read aloud in turn while the others ate their apples. And Hattie came, too, when she liked, and Sadie. But one carried the book home, that one might not be parted from it.

To-day it was with Emmy Lou. It had certain treasures between its leaves. One expects to find faint sweet rose-leaves between the pages of the Green and Gold Book, and the scrap of tinsel recalls the gleam and shimmer of the goose girl's ball-dress of woven moonbeams.

To-day the book was in Emmy Lou's desk.

Emmy Lou was at the board. It was Problems. She did not need a book. Miss Lizzie dictated when one was at the board. Emmy Lou was poor at Problems and Miss Lizzie was cross about it.

Sadie, at her desk, needed a book. She had forgotten her Arithmetic, and asked permission to borrow Emmy Lou's.

She went to get it. She pulled it out. Sadie had a way of being unfortunate. She also pulled another book out which fell open on the floor, shedding rose-leaves and tinsel.

The green and gold glitter of the book caught Miss Lizzie's eye.

Her fingers had been tearing at bits of paper all morning until her desk was strewn.

"Bring it to me," she said.

Miss Lizzie took the book from Sadie and looked at it.

Emmy Lou had just failed quite miserably at Problems. Miss Lizzie's face changed. It was as if a white rage passed over it. She stepped to the stove and cast the book in.

The very flames turned green and gold.

It was gone--the world of glamour, of glory, of dreams--the world of Emmy Lou and Rosalie, of Alice and Amanthus.

It was not Emmy Lou. It was a cry through Emmy Lou. Emmy Lou was just beginning to grow tall, just losing the round-eyed faith of babyhood.

"_You hadn't any right._"

It was terrible. The Fourth Reader class failed to breathe.

Emmy Lou must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou would not.

The hours of school dragged on. Emmy Lou sat silent.

Rosalie looked at her. Laughter had died in Rosalie's cheek. Rosalie pressed her fingers tight in misery for Emmy Lou.

Sadie looked at Emmy Lou. Sadie wept.

Hattie looked at Emmy Lou. Hattie straightened her straight little back and ground her little teeth. Hattie was of that blood which has risen up and slain for affection's sake.

This was an Emmy Lou nobody knew--white-cheeked, brooding, defiant. There are strange potentialities in every Emmy Lou.

The last bell rang.

Emmy Lou must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou would not.

Everyone went--everyone but Emmy Lou and Miss Lizzie--casting backward looks of awe and commiseration.

To be left alone in that nearness solitude entails meant torture, the torture of loathing, of shrinking, of revulsion.

She must say she was sorry. Emmy Lou was not sorry.

She sat dry-eyed. The tears would come later. More than once this year they had come after home and Aunt Cordelia's arms were reached. And Aunt Cordelia had thought it was because one was growing too fast. And Aunt Cordelia had rocked and patted and sung about "The Frog Who Would A-Wooing Go."

And then Emmy Lou had laughed because Aunt Cordelia did not know that The Frog and Jenny Wren and The Little Wee Bear were gone into the past, and The Green and Gold Book come to take their place.

The bell had rung at two o'clock. At three Tom came. Tom was the house-boy. He was suave and saddle-coloured and smiling. He had come for Emmy Lou.

Miss Lizzie looked at Emmy Lou. Emmy Lou looked straight ahead.

Then Miss Lizzie looked at Tom. Miss Lizzie could do a good deal with a look. Tom became uneasy, apologetic, guilty. Then he went. It took a good deal to wilt Tom.

At half-past three he knocked at the door again. He gave his message from outside the threshold this time. Emmy Lou must come home. Miss Cordelia said so. Emmy Lou's papa had come.

Emmy Lou heard Papa--who came a hundred miles once a month to see her.

Would Emmy Lou say she was sorry? Emmy Lou was not sorry, she could not.

Miss Lizzie shut the door in Tom's face.

Later Aunt Cordelia, bonnet on, returning from the school, explained to her brother-in-law.

Her brother-in-law regarded her thoughtfully through his eye-glasses. He was an editor, and had a mental habit of classifying people while they talked, and putting them away in pigeon-holes. While Aunt Cordelia talked he was putting her in a pigeon-hole marked "Guileless."

"She stood on the outside of the door, Brother Richard," said Aunt Cordelia, quite flushed and breathless, "with the door drawn to behind her. She's a terrifying woman, Richard. She said it was a case for discipline. She said she would allow no interference. My precious baby! And I kept on giving her iron----"

Uncle Charlie had come out with the buggy to take his brother-in-law driving.

"What did you come back without her for?" demanded Uncle Charlie.

Aunt Cordelia turned on Uncle Charlie. "You go and see why," said Aunt Cordelia.

Truly an Aunt Cordelia is the last one to stand before a Miss Lizzie.

Uncle Charlie took his brother-in-law in the buggy, and they drove to the school. Emmy Lou's father went in.

Uncle Charlie sat in the buggy and waited. Uncle Charlie wondered if it was right. Miss Lizzie was one of three. One was in an asylum. One was kept at home. And Miss Lizzie, with her rages, taught.

But could one speak, and take work and bread from a Miss Lizzie?

When papa came down, he had Emmy Lou, white-cheeked, by the hand. He had also a sternness about his mouth.

"I got her, you see," he explained with an assumption of comical chagrin, "but with limitations. She's got to say she's sorry, or she can't come back."

"I'm not sorry," said Emmy Lou wearily, but with steadiness.

"Stick it out," said Uncle Charlie, who knew his Emmy Lou.

"She needn't go back this year," said Aunt Cordelia when she heard, "my precious baby!"

"I will teach her at home," said Aunt Louise.

"There must be other Green and Gold Books," said papa, "growing on that same tree."

But Uncle Charlie, with brows drawn into a frown, was wondering.

ALL THE WINDS OF DOCTRINE

Emmy Lou was now a Big Girl. One climbed from floor to floor as one went up in Readers. With the Fifth Reader one reached the dizzy eminence of top. Emmy Lou now stood, as it were, upon a peak in Darien and stared at the great unknown, rolling ahead, called The Grammar School.

Behind, descended the grades of one's achievements back to the A, B, C of things. One had once been a pygmy part of the Primer World on the first floor one's self, and from there had gazed upward at the haloed beings peopling these same Fifth Reader Heights.

But Emmy Lou felt that somehow she was failing to experience the expected sense of dizzy height, or the joy of perquisite and privilege. To be sure, being a Big Girl, she found herself at recess, one of many, taking hands in long, undulating line, and, like the Assyrian, sweeping down on the fold, while the fold, in the shape of little girls, fled shrieking before the onslaught.

But there had been a time when Emmy Lou had been a little girl, and had fled, shrieking, herself. The memory kept her from quite enjoying the onslaught now, though of course a little girl of the under world is only a Primary and must be made to feel it. The privileged members of the Fifth Reader World are Intermediates.

They are other things, too. They are Episcopalians or Presbyterians or some other correspondingly polysyllabic thing, as the case may be. In this case each seemed to be a different thing. Hattie first called the attention of Emmy Lou to it.

The Fifth Reader members ate lunch in groups. Without knowing it, one was growing gregarious. And as becomes a higher social state, one passed one's luncheon around.

Emmy Lou passed her luncheon around. Emmy Lou herself knew the joys of eating; and hers, too, was a hospitable soul. She brought liberal luncheons. On this day, between the disks of her beaten biscuit showed the pinkness of sliced ham.

Mary Agatha drew back; Mary Agatha was Emmy Lou's newest friend. "It's Friday," said Mary Agatha.

"Of course," said Rosalie, "I forgot." Rosalie put her biscuit back.

"It's ham," said Rebecca Steinau.

Emmy Lou was hurt. It seemed almost like preconcerted reflection on her biscuits and her ham.

Hattie took Emmy Lou aside. "It's their religion," said Hattie, in tones of large tolerance. "We can eat anything, you and I, 'Piscopalians and Presbyterians."

"But Rosalie," said Emmy Lou; Rosalie, like Emmy Lou, was Episcopalian.

But Rosalie had joined Hattie and Emmy Lou. "My little brother's singing in the vested choir," said Rosalie, "and we're going to be High Church."

Hattie looked at Rosalie steadily. Then Hattie took another biscuit. Hattie took another biscuit, deliberately, aggressively. It was as though, with Hattie, to take another biscuit was a matter of conscience and protest. Hattie was Presbyterian.

But to Emmy Lou biscuits and ham had lost their savour. Emmy Lou admired Rebecca. Rebecca could reduce pounds and shillings to pence with a rapidity that Emmy Lou could not even follow. Yet Rebecca stooped from this eminence to help labouring Emmy Lou with her sums.

And Emmy Lou saw life through Rosalie's eyes. Emmy Lou trudged unquestioningly after, where the winged feet of Rosalie's fancy led. For yet about Rosalie's light footsteps trailed back some clouds of glory, and through the eyes of Rosalie one still caught visions of the glory and the dream.

And high as are the peaks of the Fifth Reader Heights, Mary Agatha stood on one yet higher. Mary Agatha went to church, not only on Sundays, but on Saints' days.

Mary Agatha loved to go to church.

But, for the matter of that, Rebecca went to church on Saturdays. When did Rebecca _play_?

To Emmy Lou church meant several things. It meant going, when down in her depraved heart lay the knowledge she tried to hide even from herself that she did not want to go. It meant a sore and troubled conscience, because her eye would travel ahead on the page to the Amens. The Amens signified the end. And it meant a fierce and unholy joy that would not down, when that end came.

But Mary Agatha loved to go to church. And Rebecca gave Saturdays to church. And now Rosalie, who admired Mary Agatha, was taking to church. No wonder that to Emmy Lou biscuits and ham were tasteless.

But the Fifth Reader is an Age of Revelation. One is more than an Intermediate. One is an Animal and a Biped. One had to confess it on paper in a Composition under the head of "Man."

One accepted the Intermediate and Biped easily, because of a haziness of comprehension, but to hear that one is an Animal was a shock.

But Miss Fanny said so. Miss Fanny also said the course in Language was absurd. She said it under her breath. She said it as Emmy Lou handed in her Composition on "Man."

So one was an animal. One felt confidence in Miss Fanny's statements. Miss Fanny walked lightly, she laughed in her eyes; that last fact one did not cherish against Miss Fanny, though sometimes one smiled doubtfully back at her. Was Miss Fanny laughing at one?

Miss Fanny was a Real Person. The others had been Teachers. Miss Fanny had a grandpapa. He was rich. And she had a mamma who cried about Miss Fanny's teaching school. But her grandpapa said he was proud of Miss Fanny.

Emmy Lou knew all about Miss Fanny. Miss Fanny's sister was Aunt Louise's best friend.

Mr. Bryan, the Principal, came often to the Fifth Reader room. He came for Language Lessons. Mr. Bryan told them he had himself introduced the Course in Language into the School Curriculum.

Its purpose, he explained, was to increase the comprehension and vocabulary of the child. The paucity of vocabulary of even the average adult, he said, is lamentable.

"In all moments of verbal doubt and perplexity," said Mr. Bryan, "seek the Dictionary. In its pages you will find both vocabulary and elucidation."

Toward spring Religions became more absorbing than ever. One day Rebecca and Gertie and Rachel brought notes. Rebecca and Gertie and Rachel must thereafter be excused on certain days at an early hour for attendance at Confirmation Class.

Miss Fanny said "Of course." But she reminded them of Examination for the Grammar School looming ahead.

A little later a second influx of notes piled Miss Fanny's desk. Mary Agatha and Kitty and Nora and Anne must go at noon, three times a week, to their Confirmation Class.

Then Yetta and Paula could not come at all on their instruction days, because the Lutheran Church was far up-town in Germanberg. They, too, were making ready for Confirmation.

Again Miss Fanny reminded them all of Examination.

Just at this time Emmy Lou was having trouble of her own. It was Lent, which meant Church three times a week. Aunt Louise said Emmy Lou must go. She said Emmy Lou, being now a big girl, ought to want to go.

Rosalie, being High, had Church every afternoon. But Rosalie liked it. Emmy Lou feared she was the only one in all the class who did not like it.

Even Sadie must enjoy church. For one day she missed in every lesson and lost her temper and cried; next day she brought a note from her mamma, and then she told Emmy Lou about it; it asked that Sadie be excused for missing, for because of the Revival at her church, Sadie would be up late every night.

Mr. Bryan was in the room when Miss Fanny read this note. She handed it to him.

"To each year its evils, I suppose," said Miss Fanny; "to the Primer its whooping-cough and measles, to the First Reader the shedding of its incisors. With the Fifth Reader comes the inoculation of doctrines. We are living the Ten Great Religions."

Mr. Bryan laid the note down. He said he must caution Miss Fanny that, as Principal or as Teacher, neither he nor she had anything to do with the religions of the children intrusted to their care. And he must remind Miss Fanny that these problems of school life could not be met with levity. He hoped Miss Fanny would take this as he meant it, kindly.

The class listened breathlessly. Was Miss Fanny treating their religions with levity? What is levity?

It was Emmy Lou who asked the others when they sought to pin the accusation to Miss Fanny.

Mary Agatha looked it up in the Dictionary. Then she reported: "Lightness of conduct, want of weight, inconstancy, vanity, frivolity." She told it off with low and accusing enunciation.

It sounded grave. Emmy Lou was troubled. Could Miss Fanny be all this? Could she be guilty of levity?

It was soon after that Mary Agatha brought a note; she told Rosalie and Emmy Lou about it; it asked that Mary Agatha be allowed a seat to herself. This, Mary Agatha explained, was because, preparatory to Confirmation, she was trying to keep her mind from secular things, and a seat to herself would help her to do it.

To Rosalie and Emmy Lou, Mary Agatha was as one already apart from things secular. To them the look on her clear, pale little profile was already rapt.

But Mary Agatha went on to tell them why she was different from Kitty or Nora, or the others of her Confirmation Class. It was because she was going to be a Bride of Heaven.

Rosalie listened, awed. But Emmy Lou did not quite understand.

Mary Agatha looked pityingly at her. "You know what a bride is? And you know what's Heaven?"

The bell rang. Emmy Lou returned to the mental eminence of her Fifth Reader heights, still hazy. Yet she hardly needed the Dictionary, for she knew a bride. Aunt Katie had been a bride. With a diamond star. And presents. And Emmy Lou knew Heaven.

Though lately Emmy Lou's ideas of Heaven had broadened. Hitherto, Heaven, conceived of the primitive, primary mind, had been a matter of vague numbers seated in parallel rows, answering to something akin to Roll Call, and awarded accordingly. But lately, a birthday had brought Emmy Lou a book called "Tanglewood Tales." And Heaven had since taken on an Olympian colouring and diversity more complex and perplexing.

Miss Fanny read Mary Agatha's note, and looking down at her said that she wondered, since every desk was in use in its dual capacity, if Mary Agatha were to devote herself quite closely to reducing pounds to pence, would it not be possible for her to forget her nearness to things secular?

Mary Agatha was poor in Arithmetic. And Miss Fanny was laughing in her eyes. Was Miss Fanny laughing at Mary Agatha?

Mary Agatha cried at recess. She said her Papa furnished pokers and tongs and shovels and dust-pans for the public schools, and he would see to it that she had a seat to herself if she wanted it.

But when the class went up from recess, there was a seat for Mary Agatha. Miss Fanny had sent the note down to Mr. Bryan, and he had arranged it. It was a table from the office, and a stool. For want of other place, they stood beneath the blackboard in front of the class. It was a high stool.

Being told, Mary Agatha gathered her books together and went and climbed upon her stool, apart from things secular.

Miss Fanny turned to Mr. Bryan. "For the propagation of infant Saint Stylites," said Miss Fanny.

"Ur-r--exactly," said Mr. Bryan. He said it a little, perhaps, doubtfully.

Suddenly Mr. Bryan grew red. He had caught Miss Fanny's eyes laughing, and saw her mouth twitching. Was Miss Fanny laughing at Mr. Bryan? What about?

Mr. Bryan went out. He closed the door. It closed sharply.

Then everything came at once. Hot weather, and roses and syringa piling Miss Fanny's desk, and Reviews for Examination, and Confirmations.

Mary Agatha asked them to her confirmation. Rosalie and Emmy Lou went. The great doors at Mary Agatha's church opened and closed behind them; it was high and dim; there were twinkling lights and silence, and awe, and colour. Something quivered. It burst forth. It was music. It was almost as if it hurt. One drew a deep breath and shut one's eyes a moment because it hurt; then one opened them. The aisles were filled with little girls in misty white and floating veils, stealing forward.

And Mary Agatha was among them.

Rosalie told Emmy Lou she meant some day to belong to Mary Agatha's church. Emmy Lou thought she would, too.

But afterward Emmy Lou found herself wavering. Was Emmy Lou's a sordid soul? For next came Confirmation at the Synagogue, and that, it seemed, meant presents. Gertie wore to school a locket on a glittering chain; Rebecca showed a new ring. Emmy Lou's faith was wavering.