III
A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW PLAIN RULES
EVERY exigency in life save one, for an Emmy Lou at six, seemingly isprovided for by rules or admonition, the one which sometimes isoverlooked being lack of understanding.
"'Take heed that thou no murder do,'" was the new clause of theCommandments In Verse, she had recited at Sunday school only yesterday.
"'The way of the transgressor is hard,'" said Dr. Angell from his pulpitto her down in the pew between Uncle Charlie and Aunt Cordelia an hourlater. Or she took it that he was saying it to her. For while onefrequently fails to follow the words in this thing of admonition, thereis no mistaking the manner. When she came into church with Uncle Charlieand Aunt Cordelia, in her white pique coat and her leghorn hat, Dr.Angell had met her in the aisle and seemed glad to see her, even topatting her cheek, but once he was in his pulpit he shook an admonishingfinger at her and thundered.
Nor did Emmy Lou, a big girl now for all she still was pink-cheeked andchubby, lack for admonitions at home from Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katieand Aunt Louise above stairs, and Aunt M'randy in the kitchen below--aworld of aunts, in this respect, it might have seemed, had Emmy Lou,faithful to those she deemed faithful to her, been one to think suchthings.
Admonitions vary. Aunt Cordelia and Aunt M'randy drew theirs from theheart, so to put it. "When you mind what I say, you are a good littlegirl. When you do not mind what I say, you are a bad little girl," saidAunt Cordelia.
"When I tell you to go on upstairs outer my way, I want you to go. WhenI tell you to take your fingers outen thet dough, I want you to take 'emout," said Aunt M'randy. Admonitions put in this way are entirelycomprehensible. There is no getting away from understanding mandatessuch as these.
Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise drew their admonitions from a small, batteredbook given to them when they were little for their guidance and known as"Songs for the Little Ones at Home."
"O that it were my chief delight To do the thing I ought; Then let me try with all my might, To mind what I am taught,"
said Aunt Katie.
"O dear me, Emma, how is this? Your hands are very dirty, Miss; I don't expect such hands to see When you come in to dine with me,"
said Aunt Louise.
Nor did Emmy Lou suspect that it was because their advice did not comefrom the heart it reduced her to gloom; that Aunt Katie and Aunt Louisedelighted in it not because it was advice, but because it did reduce herto gloom; that Aunt Katie, who was twenty-two, and Aunt Louise, who wastwenty, did it to tease?
Bob, the house-boy, too, had his line of ethics for her. And while hewent to Sunday school, and to what he called Lodge, and had what hetermed fun'ral insurance, observances all entitling him to standing, hepointed his warnings with dim survivals from an older, darker lore whichsomeone wiser than Bob or Emmy Lou might have recognized as hoodoo. Notthat Bob or Emmy Lou either knew this. Nor yet did Emmy Lou grasp thathe to whom she was told to go for company a dozen times a day when theothers wanted to get rid of her used the same to get rid of her himself.On the contrary, her faith in him being what it was, his warnings sankdeep, the dire fates of his examples being guaranty for that. Moreoverhis examples came close home.
The little girl who wouldn't go play when they wanted to get rid of her.The little boy who would stay out visiting so late they had to send thehouse-boy after him. The little girl who wouldn't go 'long when told togo, but would hang around the kitchen. Treated as a class by Bob, aclass, so his gloomy head-shakings would imply, peculiarly fitting tohis present company, their fates were largely similar.
"They begun to peak, an' then to pine. An' still they wouldn't mind.Thar ha'r drapped out in the comb. An' still they wouldn't mind. Tharnails come loose. An' still they wouldn't mind. Thar teeth drapped out.But it wuz too late. When they tried to mind _they couldn't mind_!"
And while his audience might chafe beneath the almost too personal toneof these remarks, she dared not question them. Examples dire as Bob'swere vouched for every day. Only the Noahs were saved in the ark. Lot'swife turned to a pillar of salt. The bear came out of the woods and atethe naughty children. Aunt Cordelia and Sunday school alike said so. Thewicked sisters of Cinderella were driven out of the palace. Aunt Katieand Aunt Louise said so. The disobedient little mermaid was turned intofoam. The little girl down at the corner, named Maud, who owned thebook, said so.
These things all considered, perhaps it came to be a matter of too manyand cumulative admonishings with Emmy Lou. Nature will revolt at toosteady a diet perhaps even of admonitions. Or it may be that even anEmmy Lou in time rebels, when elders so persistently refuse to recognizethat there is another, an Emmy Lou's side, to most affairs.
For at six the peripatetic instinct has awakened and the urge within isto move on. Where? How does an Emmy Lou know? Anywhere so that thecloying performances of outgrown baby ways are behind her.
Many whom she knew in the receded stages of five years old, and four,have moved on or away before this. Izzy who lived next door. Minnie wholived next to Izzy. Lisa Schmit whose father had the grocery at thecorner but now has one at a corner farther away.
And others have moved into Emmy Lou's present ken. Mr. Dawkins has thegrocery at the corner now, and his little girl is Maud, guarantor forthe mermaid, and his big girl is Sarah, and his little boy is AlbertEddie. The peripatetic instinct impelling, Emmy Lou goes to see them asoften as Aunt Cordelia will permit.
There is fascination in going if one could but convey this to AuntCordelia in words. Any can live in houses; indeed most people do; or inEmmy Lou's time did; but only the few live over a grocery.
It argues these different. Mr. Schmit was German. Mr. Dawkins isEnglish. At Emmy Lou's, the teakettle, a vague part in family affairs,boils on the stove, but at Maud's, the teakettle, a family affair ofmoment, boils on the "hob," which is to say, the grate. And more, thefather and mother of Maud and Albert Eddie not only have crossed thatvague something, home of the little mermaid, the ocean, but their motherhas all but seen the Queen.
"You know the Queen?" the two had asked Emmy Lou anxiously.
And she had said yes. And she did know her. Knew her from longassociation and by heart. She sat in her parlor at the bottom of thepage, eating bread and honey, while the maid and the blackbird were atthe top of the next page.
"Tell her about it," Maud and Albert Eddie then had urged Sarah, theirelder sister, "about when mother all but saw the Queen?"
Sarah complied. "'Now hurry along home with your brother in theperambulator while I stop at the shop,' mother's mother said to her.Mother was twelve years old. But she didn't hurry. She stopped to watchevery one else all at once hurrying and running, and so when she reachedthe corner the Queen, for the Queen it was, had gone by."
"If she had minded her mother----" from Albert Eddie.
"And hurried on home with the perambulator----" from Maud. Proof notonly of a worthy attitude on their part towards the admonition of thetale, but of an evident comprehension of what a perambulator was.
But Aunt Cordelia, not always a free agent, was no longer permitting somuch visiting.
"You are letting her actually live on the street," said Aunt Katie.
"With any sort of children," supplemented Aunt Louise.
Undoubtedly Aunt Cordelia came the nearest to understanding there isanother side to these affairs. "Sometimes I think she's lonesome," shesaid.
"Those children who are all the day, Allowed to wander out, And only waste their time in play, Or running wild about----"
said Aunt Katie. Aunt Louise finished it:
"Who do not any school attend, But trifle as they will, Are almost certain in the end, To come to something ill."
And while it almost would seem that Aunt Cordelia was being admonishedtoo, and from the little book, in the light of what followed, itappeared that Aunt Katie, Aunt Louise, and the little book were right.
The day in question started wrong. In
the act of getting out of bed,life seemed a heavy and a listless thing. If Emmy Lou, less pink-cheekedthan usual if any had chanced to notice, but full as chubby, ever hadfelt this way before, she would have told Aunt Cordelia that her headached. But if the head never has ached before?
Her attention was distracted here, anyhow, and she, startled, let hertongue pass along the row of her teeth. Milk teeth, those who knew theterm would have called them. There is much, however, that an Emmy Lou,one small person in a household of elders, is supposed to know that shedoes not, knowledge coming not by nature but through understanding.
Then, reassured, her attention came back to the affairs of the moment,the chief of these being that life is a heavy and listless affair andthe labyrinthine windings of stockings more than ever fretting in effectupon the temper. And after stockings come garments, ending with the pinkcalico dress apportioned to the day, and succeeding garments comebuttons. Aunt Katie in the next room was cheerful.
"I love to see a little girl Rise with the lark so bright, Bathe, comb and dress with cheerful face----"
One was in no mood whatever for the little book, and showed it. AuntLouise in the next room too, possibly grasped this.
"Why is Sarah standing there Leaning down upon a chair, With such an angry lip and brow, I wonder what's the matter now?"
Aunt Cordelia was struggling with the buttons. "Let her alone, both ofyou. Sometimes I think you are half responsible."
The outrages of the day went on at breakfast. Emmy Lou's once prizedhighchair, a tight fit now, and which, could she have had her own way,would have been repudiated some time ago, was in itself provocative. Sheclimbed into it stonily.
Bob placed a saucer before her. If she ever had suffered the qualms ofan uneasy stomach before, she would have known and told Aunt Cordelia.
"I don't want my oatmeal," said Emmy Lou.
"You must eat it before you can have anything else," said Aunt Cordelia.
"I don't want anything else."
"She's fretful," said Aunt Katie.
"She's cross," said Aunt Louise.
"I am coming to think you are right, Louise," said Aunt Cordelia. "Whatshe needs is to be at school with other children. School opens the dayafter tomorrow, and I'll start her."
"This baby?" from Uncle Charlie incredulously, his gaze seeking Emmy Louin her highchair.
"Look at that oatmeal still untouched," from Aunt Cordelia. "Charlie,_she is getting so she doesn't want to mind_!"
The outrages went on during the morning. Emmy Lou did not know what todo with herself, whereas Aunt Cordelia had a great deal to do withherself. "You little hindering thing!" by and by from that person withexasperation. "Go on out and talk with Bob. He's cleaning knives on thekitchen doorstep."
But Bob, occupied with his board and bath-brick and piece of rawpotato, had no idea of talking with her. He talked to himself.
"Seems like I done forgot how it went, 'bout thet li'l boy whut wouldstan' roun' listenin'. Some'n' like 'bout thet li'l girl whut wouldn'tgo about her business----"
Gathering up his knives and board, he went in to set his table. Turningaround by and by he found her behind him in the pantry. He talked tohimself some more.
"Reckon is I done forgot how it went? 'Bout thet li'l girl got shet upin the pantry after they tol' her to keep out? She knowed ef she coughedthey'd hear an' come an' fin' her thar. An' she hed to cough. An' shewouldn't cough. An' she hed to. An' she wouldn't. An' she hed to. An'she DID. But it wuz too late. The pieces of her wuz ev'ey whar, even tothe next spring when they wuz house-cleanin', an' foun' her knuckle-boneon the fur top shelf. Looks lak to me, somebody else is gettin' readyfor a good lesson. Better watch out."
The final outrage was yet to come. At the close of dinner Emmy Lou cameround to Aunt Cordelia's chair. Aunt Cordelia was worn out. She hadnever known her Emmy Lou to behave as she had in the last day or so.
"Now don't come asking me again," she said, forestalling the issue."I've gone over the matter with you several times before today. Youcannot go play with anybody. No, not with Maud at the corner or anybodyelse." Then to Uncle Charlie, shaking his head over this unwontedfriction as he rose to start back down town: "They tell me there iswhooping-cough around everywhere, Charlie." Then to Emmy Lou: "Now tryand be a good girl for the rest of the day, Aunt Cordelia will have herhands full. It is Bob's afternoon out. Try and be Aunt Cordelia'sprecious baby."
But Emmy Lou, her tongue traveling the row of her teeth anew, didn'tpropose to be anybody's precious baby. She was a big girl, now, almostsix years old, and wanted it recognized that she was. And she didn'tfeel good in the least, but like being quite the reverse for the rest ofthe day.
This was at two o'clock. At three Aunt Cordelia's own Emmy Lou, the pinkcalico upon her person and a straw hat upon her head, turned the knob ofthe front door. Having obeyed thus far in life, she was about todisobey.
The front door, its knob requiring both hands and her tiptoes, whereasthe kitchen door would have been open. But Aunt M'randy was in thekitchen.
As it chanced, Bob was leaving by the kitchen door, and coming around bythe side pavement as Emmy Lou came down the steps, they met. His ideaseemed to be that she was tagging after him, an injury in itself whenshe divined it. He was of the same mind evidently when a moment latershe was still beside him outside the gate.
He paused and addressed the air disparagingly before he went. "Lookslike to me I'll have to bresh up my ricollection 'bout thet li'l girlwhut would come outside her own gate after she was tole not to come.Spoilin' for one good lesson, thet li'l girl wuz, an' 'pears like to meshe got it. Better watch out." And Bob was gone, up the street, whereasit was the definite intention of the other person at that gate to godown the street.
Mr. Dawkins' grocery fronted on the main street while his housedooropened on the side-street. A few moments later a small figure in afamiliar pink dress and straw hat reached this side door, and, pausinglong enough for her tongue to pass uneasily along the row of her teeth,opened it upon a flight of stairs and went in.
Five o'clock it was and after when Mr. Dawkins' eldest daughter Sarah,followed by Maud and Albert Eddie, came down these steps propelling avisitor in a pink dress and straw hat, a visitor known from the Dawkins'viewpoint as that little girl from up the street in the white house thatget their groceries from Schmit.
Perhaps this fact explained Sarah's small patience with this person whoin herself would seem to invite it. She not only was pale, and her lipspressed with unnatural while miserable firmness together, but her eyes,uplifted when Sarah most undeniably shook her, were anguished.
"If you'd open your mouth and speak," said Sarah with every indicationof shaking her again.
A stout gentleman coming along the side street which led from a car-linecrossed over hastily.
"Here, here! And what for?" Uncle Charlie asked with spirit.
Sarah looked up at him. With her long, tidy plaits and her tidy personshe conveyed the impression that she was to be depended on. Maud lookedup at him. With her small tidy plaits and her tidy person she conveyedthe impression that she was to be depended on, too.
Albert Eddie looked up. Mr. Dawkins was to be congratulated on hisfamily. There was dependability in every warm freckle of Albert Eddie'sface.
Emmy Lou, Uncle Charlie's own Emmy Lou, had been looking up the while,anguished. She was a reliable person in general herself, or UncleCharlie always had found her so.
"If she'd open her mouth and speak," said Sarah. "Half an hour ago bythe clock it was, she gave a sound, and I turned, and here she was likethis."
"Sister was telling us a story----" from Albert Eddie.
"The story of naughty Harryminta----" from Maud.
"No use your trying, sir," from Sarah. "I've been trying for half anhour. We're taking her home."
"Excellent idea." He took Emmy Lou's little hands. "So you won't tellUncle Charlie either?"
Evidently she would not, though it was with visible increase
of anguishthat she indicated this by a shake of her head.
"We'll walk along," said Sarah. "I've my part of supper to get, butwe'll feel better ourselves to see her home."
They walked along.
"I was talking to them peaceful as might be----" from Sarah again.
"Sister was telling us a story----" from Albert Eddie.
"The story of naughty Harryminta----" from Maud.
Was it a sound here from Uncle Charlie's Emmy Lou, or the twitch of herhand in his, which betrayed some access to her woe?
"And what was the story?" asked Uncle Charlie. It might afford a clue.
Maud volunteered it. "The little girl's mother said to her, 'Don't.' Andher name was Harryminta. And when she got back from doing what she wastold not to do, her mother was waiting for her at the door. 'Whoselittle girl is this?' And Harryminta said, 'Why, it's your little girl.'But her mother shook her head. 'Not my little girl at all. _My littlegirl is a good little girl._' And shut the door."
"Talk about your coincidence," said Uncle Charlie afterward. "Talk aboutyour Nemesis and such!"
For as the group came along the street--the Dawkins family, UncleCharlie, and Emmy Lou--and turned in at the gate, Aunt Cordelia flungthe front door open. Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise were behind her. Theyhad really just missed Emmy Lou.
"Whose little girl is this?" said Aunt Cordelia, severely. But not goingas far as the mother of Araminta she did not shut the door. Instead,Sarah explained.
"Half an hour ago by the clock----" Sarah began.
They led her into the hall, and Aunt Cordelia lifted her up on themarble slab of the pier table. Aunt Cordelia's admonitions and mandatescame from the heart. "Open your mouth and speak out and tell me what'sthe matter?"
Emmy Lou opened her mouth, and in the act, though visibly against herstoutest endeavor even to an alarming accession of pink to her face,ominously and unmistakably--whooped; the same followed on her part bythe full horror of comprehension, and then by a wail.
For with that whoop the worst had happened. As with the little boys andgirls in Bob's dire category of naughty little boys and girls, her sinhad found her out indeed.
"I'm coming to pieces," wailed their terrified Emmy Lou, "because Ididn't mind."
And according to her understanding she was, since after her vainendeavor for half an hour by Sarah's clock to hold it in place withtongue and lips, in her palm lay a tooth, the first she had shed orknown she had to shed, knowledge coming not by nature but throughunderstanding.
Aunt Cordelia did not carry out her program the day school opened. Therewas whooping-cough at her house, and a day or so after there waswhooping-cough at Mr. Dawkins'.
"He is very indignant about it," Aunt Cordelia told Uncle Charlie. "Hestopped me as I came by this morning from my marketing. He said itwasn't even as though we were customers."
"Which is the least we can be after this, I'm sure you will agree," saidUncle Charlie.
Just here in the conversation, Emmy Lou, miserable and stuffy in a pinksacque over her habitual garb because Aunt Cordelia most emphaticallyinsisted, whooped.
"Those _good_ little girls, Marianne and Maria, Were happy and well as _good_ girls could desire--"
said Aunt Louise.
Aunt Cordelia, approaching with a bottle and spoon as she did afterevery cough, shook her head. "Little girls who mind are good littlegirls," she said.
"Emmy Lou is learning to be a good little girl while she is shut up inthe house sick," said Aunt Katie. "She knows all of her Commandments InVerse for Sunday school now. Let Aunt Cordelia wipe the cough-syrup offyour mouth and say them for Uncle Charlie before he goes."
Emmy Lou learning to be a good little girl said them obediently.
"Thou shalt have no more gods but me; Before no idol bow thy knee. Take not the name of God in vain, Nor dare the Sabbath day profane. Give both thy parents honor due, Take heed that thou no murder do. Abstain from deeds and words unclean, Nor steal though thou art poor and mean; Nor make a willful lie nor love it, What is thy neighbor's, dare not covet."
Aunt Cordelia, Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise looked pleased. Emmy Lou hadsaid the verses without stumbling. Uncle Charlie looked doubtful. "Fivewords with understanding rather than ten thousand in an unknown tongue?How about it, Cordelia?"
But Bob, bringing Emmy Lou's dinner upstairs to her on a tray, had thelast disturbing word. "Been tryin' to riccollect how it went, 'bout thetli' girl kep' her tongue outer the place whar her tooth drapped out,so's a new tooth would grow in."