Chapter 7

About this time Miss Fanny spoke her mind. Because of excuses and absences, because of abstractions and absorptions, Miss Fanny said marks were low; and she reminded them of Examination for the Grammar School near at hand. Then she asked a little girl named Sally why she had failed to hand in her Composition.

Sally said her church was having a season of prayer, and her Mother said Sally was old enough now to go, and as it was both afternoons and evenings, Sally had had no time to write a Composition.

Miss Fanny told Sally to remain in at recess and write it. Mr. Bryan had inquired for her Composition.

Sally remained in tears. The subject for her Composition was "Duty."

Miss Fanny put her hand on Sally's shoulder and said something about a divided duty. And Sally cried some more, and Miss Fanny sat down at the desk and helped her.

Emmy Lou saw it. She had come upstairs, in a moment of doubt and perplexity, to consult the Dictionary; the word was _heretic_.

It was this way. They had been in a group at recess and Mary Agatha was dividing her button-string. Mary Agatha said she had given up worldly things, and it would be a sin for her to own a button-string.

She offered Hattie a button. Hattie refused it; she said if it was a sin to own a button-string, why should Mary Agatha offer her buttons to other people? And she walked off. Hattie had an uncompromising way of putting things. Hattie was a Presbyterian.

Emmy Lou felt anxious; she had been offered a button first and had taken it gratefully, for her button-string was short.

But Mary Agatha assured her that she and Hattie and the others of the group could own button-strings where Mary Agatha could not. A mere matter of a button-string made small difference. They were Heretics.

Rosalie put her arm about Emmy Lou. Being High Church, she did not take it to herself; she took it for Emmy Lou.

Emmy Lou hesitated. Ought she to be offended? Was she a Heretic? Emmy Lou was cautious, for she had contradicted Hattie about being an Animal, and then had to confess on paper that such she was.

But Sadie had no doubts. Sadie, following the revival, had joined the church, and she felt she knew where she stood. "I'd have you know," said Sadie, "I'm a Christian," and Sadie began to cry.

Rebecca Steinau lifted her black eyes. She gave her beringed little hand a dramatic and conclusive wave. "You're all of you Gentiles," said Rebecca.

Emmy Lou left the group. As Animal, Biped, Intermediate, Low Church, Episcopalian, Gentile, and possible Heretic, she went upstairs to seek the Dictionary. It was a moment of doubt and perplexity; with labouring absorption she and her index finger pored over the page.

"One whose errors are doctrinal and usually of a malignant character--" Ought she to be offended?

The bell rang. The class filed in. Sadie's eyes were red. Miss Fanny tried not to see her--her eyes were chronically red. But so insistently and ostentatiously did Sadie continue to mop them, that Miss Fanny was compelled to take notice.

Sadie told her grievances. Her voice broke on Heretic, and she wept afresh at Gentile.

Miss Fanny was outdone. She said they had better all be little Heretics than little Pharisees; she said she only needed a few infant Turks and Infidels, and her sectarian Babel would be complete.

That day there were more notes. Miss Fanny gave them this time. To Sadie and Mary Agatha and Rebecca and Sally among others.

Emmy Lou heard about the notes afterward. Each said the same thing. Each said that Sadie or Rebecca or Mary Agatha or whichever little girl it might be, had repeatedly fallen below; that she had not for weeks given her mind to her lessons, and she could not conscientiously be recommended as ready for Examination for the Grammar School.

The next day, near recess, there came a knock at the Fifth Reader door. Sadie's mamma came in. Sadie grew red. One always grows red when it is one's relative who comes in. Sadie's mamma was a pale, little lady who cried. She cried now. She said that for Sadie to be kept back for no other reason than her natural piety, was evidence of a personal dislike. She said Miss Fanny had upheld another little girl who called Sadie a Heretic.

Miss Fanny asked Sadie's mamma to sit down on the bench. Recess was near, and then Miss Fanny could talk.

There came a knock at the door. A lady with black eyes came in. Rebecca got red. It was Rebecca's mamma. She said Rebecca had always done well at school. She said Rebecca was grand at figures. She said Miss Fanny had thrown her religion at Rebecca, and had called her a Pharisee.

Miss Fanny asked Rebecca's mamma to sit down on the bench. It would soon be recess.

Sadie's mamma and Rebecca's mamma looked at each other coldly.

The door opened. Sally got red. Sally looked frightened. It was Sally's mamma. The flower in her bonnet shook when she talked. She said Sally had refused to go to church for fear of Miss Fanny. And because Sally had been made to do her religious duty she was being threatened with failure----

Miss Fanny interrupted Sally's mamma to say there was the bench, if she cared to sit down. At recess Miss Fanny would be at leisure.

Mr. Bryan threw open the door. Mary Agatha grew pink as Mr. Bryan waved in a slender lady with trailing silken skirts and reproachful eyes. It was Mary Agatha's mamma. She said that even with the note, threatening Mary Agatha with failure, she could not have believed it true; that Miss Fanny disliked Mary Agatha because of the seat to herself; that Miss Fanny had classed Mary Agatha with Turks and Infidels--but since Mr. Bryan had just admitted downstairs that he had had to caution Miss Fanny about this matter of religion----

Miss Fanny looked at Mr. Bryan. Then she rang the bell. It was not yet recess-time; but since Miss Fanny rang the bell, the Fifth Reader Class filed out wonderingly. Miss Fanny, looking at Mr. Bryan, had a queer smile in her eyes. Yet it was not as though Miss Fanny's smile was laughter.

But, after all, Sadie and Mary Agatha and Sally and Rebecca did try at Examination. Miss Fanny, it seemed, insisted they should. A teacher from the Grammar School came and examined the class.

Later, one went back to find out. There was red ink written across the reports of Sadie and Sally and Mary Agatha and Rebecca. It said "Failure."

Emmy Lou breathed. There was no red ink on her report. Emmy Lou had passed for the Grammar School.

Down-stairs Mary Agatha said her papa would see to it because she had failed. Her papa furnished pokers and shovels for the schools, and her papa would call on the Board.

Mary Agatha's Papa did see to it, and the papas of Sadie and Sally and Rebecca supported him. They called it religious persecution; and they wanted Miss Fanny removed.

Emmy Lou heard about it at home. It was vacation.

Uncle Charlie owned a newspaper. It was for Miss Fanny. And Miss Fanny's grandpapa, talking at the gate with Uncle Charlie, struck the pavement hard with his cane; he'd see about it, too, said her grandpapa. Emmy Lou heard him.

But when it came time for the Board to meet, Miss Fanny, it seemed, had resigned. Aunt Louise read it out of the paper at breakfast.

"How strange--" said Aunt Louise.

"Not at all," said Uncle Charlie.

Aunt Louise said, "Oh!" She was reading on down the column.

"--resignation by request, because the Board, in recognition of her merit and record as Teacher, has appointed her Principal of the new school on Elm Street."

"But she's not a man," said Emmy Lou when it had been explained to her. Emmy Lou was bewildered.

"It's a departure," said Uncle Charlie.

"Don't tease her, Charlie," said Aunt Cordelia.

Emmy Lou felt troubled; she liked Miss Fanny; she could not bear to contemplate her in the guise of Principal. One could never like Miss Fanny then any more.

Miss Fanny's mamma had cried because Miss Fanny was a teacher, Emmy Lou remembered. But that was nothing to this.

Some teachers could be nice. Miss Fanny had been nice. But to be a Principal!

Emmy Lou had known but one type. She looked up from her plate. "I reckon Miss Fanny's mamma will cry some more," said Emmy Lou.

THE CONFINES OF CONSISTENCY

Aunt Louise was opposed to the public school.

Uncle Charlie said he feared Aunt Louise did not appreciate the democratic institutions of her country.

Emmy Lou caught the word--democratic; later she had occasion to consider it further.

Aunt Louise said that Uncle Charlie was quite right in his fear, and the end was that Emmy Lou was started at private school.

But it was not a school--it was only a Parlour; and there being a pupil more than there were accommodations, and Emmy Lou being the new-comer, her portion was a rocking-chair and a lap-board.

There was not even a real teacher, only an old lady who called one "my dear."

At home Emmy Lou cried with her head buried in Aunt Cordelia's new bolster sham; for how could she confess to Hattie and to Rosalie that it was a parlour and a lap-board?

Upon consultation, Uncle Charlie said, let her do as she pleased, since damage to her seemed to be inevitable either way. So, Emmy Lou, rejoicing, departed one morning for the Grammar School.

Public school being different from private school, Emmy Lou at once began to learn things. For instance, at Grammar School, one no longer speaks of boys in undertones. One assumes an attitude of having always known boys. At Grammar School, classes attend chapel. There are boys in Chapel, still separated from the girls, to be sure, after the manner of the goats from the sheep; but after one learns to laugh from the corners of one's eyes at boys, a dividing line of mere aisle is soon abridged. Watching Rosalie, Emmy Lou discovered this.

There was a boy in Chapel whom she knew, but it takes courage to look out of the corners of one's eyes, and Emmy Lou could only find sufficient to look straight, which is altogether a different thing. But the boy saw her. Emmy Lou looked away quickly.

Once the boy's name had been Billy; later, at dancing school, it was Willie; now, the Principal who conducted Chapel Exercises called him William.

Emmy Lou liked this Principal. He had white hair, and when it fell into his eyes he would stand it wildly over his head, running his fingers through its thickness; but one did not laugh because of greater interest in what he said.

Emmy Lou asked Rosalie the Principal's name, but Rosalie was smiling backward at a boy as the classes filed out of Chapel. Afterward she explained that his name was Mr. Page.

At Grammar School Emmy Lou continued to learn things. The pupils of a grammar school abjure school bags; a Geography now being a folio volume measurable in square feet, it is the thing to build upon its basic foundation an edifice of other text-books, and carry the sum total to and fro on an aching arm.

Nor do grammar-school pupils bring lunch; they bring money, and buy lunch--pies, or doughnuts, or pickles--having done with the infant pabulum of primary bread and butter.

Nor does so big a girl as a grammar-school pupil longer confess to any infantile abbreviation of entitlement; she gives her full baptismal name and is written down, as in Emmy Lou's case, Emily Louise Pope MacLauren, which has its drawbacks; for she sometimes fails to recognise the unaccustomed sound of that name when called unexpectedly from the platform.

For at twelve years, an Emmy Lou finds herself dreaming, and watching the clouds through the school-room windows. The reading lesson concerns one Alnaschar, the Barber's Fifth Brother; and while the verses go droningly round, the kalsomined blue walls fade, and one wanders the market-place of Bagdad, amid bales of rich stuffs, and trays of golden trinkets and mysteries that trouble not, purveyors and Mussulmen, eunuchs and seraglios, khans, mosques, drachmas--one has no idea what they mean, nor does one care: on every hand in Life lie mysteries, why not in books? The thing is, to seize upon the Story, and to let the other go.

And so Emily Louise fails to answer to the baptismal fulness of her name spoken from the platform, until at a neighbour's touch she springs up, blushing.

But, somehow, she did not take the reproach in Miss Amanda's voice to heart; Miss Amanda was given to saying reproachfully, "Please, p-ple-e-ase--young _la_dies," many times a day, but after a brief pause one returned to pleasant converse with a neighbour.

Jokes were told about Miss Amanda among the girls, and, gathering at recess about her desk, her pupils would banter Miss Amanda as to who was her favourite, whereupon, she, pleased and flattered, would make long and detailed refutation of any show of partiality.

Miss Amanda pinned a bow in her hair, and wore a chain, and rings, and was given to frequent patting and pushing of her hair into shape; was it possible Miss Amanda felt herself to be--_pretty_?

Ordinarily, however, Emily Louise did not think much about her one way or another, except at those times when Miss Amanda tried to be funny; then she quite hated her with unreasoning fierceness.

Right now Miss Amanda was desiring Emily Louise MacLauren to give attention.

Once a week there was public recitation in the Chapel. Mr. Page considered it good for boys and girls to work together, which was a new way of regarding it peculiar to grammar school, for hitherto, boys, like the skull and cross-bones bottles in Aunt Cordelia's closet, had been things to be avoided.

"To-morrow," Miss Amanda was explaining, "the chapel recitation will be in grammar; you will conjugate," Miss Amanda simpered, "the verb--to love," with playful meaning in her emphasis; "but I need have no fear, young ladies," archly, "that you will let yourselves be beaten at this lesson."

Miss Amanda meant to be funny. Emily Louise, for one, looked stonily ahead; not for anything would she smile.

But the weekly recitation varied, and there came a week when the classes were assembled for a lesson in composition.

Mr. Page laughed at what he called flowery effusions. "Use the matter and life about you," he said.

"There is one boy," he went on to state, "whose compositions are generally good for that reason. William, step up, sir, and let us hear what you have made of this."

William arose. He was still square, but he was no longer short; there was a straight and handsome bridge building to his nose, and he had taken to tall collars. William's face was somewhat suffused at this summons to publicity, but his smile was cheerful and unabashed. His composition was on "Conscience." So were the compositions of the others; but his was different.

"A boy has one kind of a conscience," read William, "and a girl has another kind. Two girls met a cow. 'Look her right in the face and pretend like we aren't afraid,' said the biggest girl; but the littlest girl had a conscience. 'Won't it be deceiving the cow?' she wanted to know."

Emily Louise blushed; how could William! For Emily Louise was "the littlest girl;" Hattie was the other, and William had come along and driven the cow away.

William was still reading: "There was a girl found a quarter in the snow. She thought how it would buy five pies, or ten doughnuts, or fifteen pickles, and then she thought about the person who would come back and find the place in the snow and no quarter, and so she went and put the quarter back."

How could William! Mr. Page, his hair wildly rumpled, was clapping hand to knee; even the teachers were trying not to smile. Emily Louise blushed hotter, for Emily Louise, taking the quarter back, had met William.

"Boys are different," stated William's composition. "There was a boy went to the office to be whipped. The strap hit a stone in his pocket. So the Principal, who went around on Saturdays with a hammer tapping rocks, let the boy off. He didn't know the boy got the rock out the alley on purpose. But I reckon boys have some kind of a conscience. That boy felt sort of mean."

It was the teachers who were laughing now, while Mr. Page, running his fingers through his hair, wore a smile--arrested, reflective, considering. But it broadened; there are Principals, here and there, who can appreciate a William.

The cheek of Emily Louise might be hot, but in her heart was a newer feeling; was it pleasure? Something, somewhere, was telling Emily Louise that William liked her the better for these things he was laughing at. Was she pleased thereat? Never. Her cheek grew hotter. Yet the pleasurable sensation was there. Suddenly she understood. It was because of this tribute to the condition of her conscience. Of course it would be perfectly proper, therefore, to determine to keep up this reputation with William.

There was other proof that William liked her. At grammar school it was the proper thing to own an autograph album. William's page in the album of Emily Louise was a triumph in purple ink upon a pinkish background. Not that William had written it. Jimmy Reed had written it for him. Jimmy wielded a master pen in flourish and shading, upon which he put a price accordingly. A mere name cost the patrons of Jimmy a pickle, while a pledge to eternal friendship or sincerity was valued at a doughnut. For the feelings in verse, one paid a pie.

William had paid a pie, and his sentiments at maximum price thus set forth declared:

"True friendship is a golden knot Which angles' hands have tied, By heavenly skill its textures wrought Who shall its folds divide?"

Emily Louise wondered about the "angles hands." What were they? It never suggested itself that a master of the pen such as Jimmy might be weak in spelling.

One has to meet new responsibilities at grammar school, too; one has to be careful with whom she associates.

Associate was Isobel's word; she used many impressive words, but then Isobel was different; she spelled her name with an o, and she did not live in a home; Isobel lived in a hotel, and her papa was the holder of a government position. Hattie's papa, someone told Emily Louise, had wanted to hold it, but Isobel's papa got it.

Isobel said a person must discriminate. This Emily Louise found meant, move in groups that talked each about the others. Isobel and Rosalie pointed out to Emily Louise that the nice girls were in their group.

Yet Hattie was not in it; Emily Louise wondered why.

"It depends on who you are," said Isobel, with the sweeping calmness of one whose position is assured. "My papa is own second cousin to the Attorney-General of the United States."

And that this claim conveyed small meaning to the group about Isobel, made her family connections by no means the less impressive and to be envied. The Isobels supply their part of the curriculum of grammar school.

Emily Louise went home anxious. "Have I a family?" she inquired.

"It's hard to say, since you abandoned it," said Uncle Charlie.

Emily Louise blushed; she did not feel just happy in her mind yet about those dolls buried in a mausoleum-like trunk in the attic.

She explained: the kind of family that has a tree? Did she belong to a family? Had she a tree?

"The only copper beech in town," said Uncle Charlie.

But Aunt Cordelia's vulnerable spot was touched; she grew quite heated. Emily Louise learned that she was a Pringle and a Pope.

"And a MacLauren?" queried Emily Louise.

But Aunt Cordelia's enthusiasm had cooled.

There came a time when Emily Louise divined why. All at once talk began at school, about a thing looming ahead, called an Election. It seemed a disturbing thing, keeping Uncle Charlie at the office all hours. And when in time it actually arrived, Emily Louise could not go to school that day because the way would take her past the Polls, yet ordinarily this was only the grocery; but so dreadful a place is it when it becomes a poll, that Aunt Cordelia could not go to it for her marketing.

Hitherto, except when Miss Amanda wanted to be funny, Emily Louise had felt her to be inoffensive; but as election became the absorbing topic of Grammar School, a dreadful thing came to light--Miss Amanda was a Republican.

Hattie told Emily Louise; her voice was low and full of horror. For Hattie reflected the spirit of her State and age; the State was in the South, the year was preceding the '80's.

Emily Louise lowered her voice, too; it was to ask just what is a Republican. She was conscious of a vagueness.

Hattie looked at her, amazed. "A Republican--why--people who are not Democrats--of course."

"How does one know which one is?" asked Emily Louise, feeling that it would be disconcerting, considering public opinion, to find herself a Republican.

Hattie looked tried. "You're what your father is, naturally. I should think you'd know that, Emily Louise."

On the way from school William joined Emily Louise.

"What's a Republican, William?" she asked.

His countenance changed. "It's--well--it's the sort you don't want to have anything to do with," said William, darkly.

Emily Louise, knowing how William regarded her conscientiousness, was uneasy because of a certain recollection. She must get to the bottom of this. She sought Aunt Louise privately. "Aren't you a Democrat?" she inquired.

The indignant response of Aunt Louise was disconcerting. "What else could you dream I am?" she demanded with asperity.

"You said you didn't approve of Democratic Institutions," explained Emily Louise, recalling.

"I approve of nothing under Republican domination," said Aunt Louise haughtily--which was muddling.

"What's Papa?" asked Emily Louise, suddenly.

Aunt Louise, dressing for a party, shut her door sharply.

One could ask Aunt Cordelia. But Aunt Cordelia turned testy, and even told Emily Louise to run away.

Uncle Charlie was gone.

There was Aunt M'randa and Tom, so Emily Louise sought the kitchen. It was after supper. Tom was spelling the news from a paper spread on the table, and Aunt M'randa was making up the flannel cakes for breakfast.

"Who? Yo' paw?" said Tom; "he's a Republican; he done edit that kinder paper over 'cross the Ohier River, he does."

There was unction in the glib quickness of Tom's reply. Then he dodged; it was just in time.

"Shet yo' mouf," said Aunt M'randa with wrath; "ain't I done tol' how they've kep' it from the chile."

Emily Louise was swallowing hard. "Then--then--am I a Republican?" Her voice sounded way off.

Aunt M'randa turned a scandalised face upon her last baby in the family. "Co'se yer ain't chile; huccome yer think sech er thing? Ain't yer done learned its sinnahs is lumped wi' 'publicans--po' whites, an' cul'd folks an' sech?"

The comfort in Aunt M'randa's reassuring was questionable. "But--you said--my papa--" said Emily Louise.

The tension demanded relief. Aunt M'randa turned on Tom. "I lay I bus' yo' haid open ef yer don't quit yo' stan'in' wi' yer mouf gapin' at the trouble yer done made."

Aunt M'randa was sparring for time.

"Don' yer worry 'bout dat, honey"--this to Emily Louise--"hit's jes' one dese here mistakes in jogaphy, seem like, same es yer tell erbout gettin' kep' in foh. Huccome a gen'man like yo' paw, got bawn y'other side de Ohier River, 'ceptin' was an acci-dent? Dess tell me dat? But dere's 'nough quality dis here side de fam'ly to keep yer a good Dem'crat, honey--" and Aunt M'randa, muttering, glared at Tom.