Emmy Lou's Road to Grace: Being a Little Pilgrim's Progress

by Howard Roger Garis

  V

  LIONS IN THE PATH

  EMMY LOU came home at close of her first day in the Second Reader. "Isit with Hattie," she said.

  "Who is she?" asked Aunt Katie.

  "Where does she come from?" added Aunt Louise.

  Emmy Lou was perplexed. Who is Hattie? In her pink-sprigged dress withher plaits tied behind her either ear? Breathing briskness andconviction? Why, Hattie is _Hattie_. But how convey this to Aunt Katie?

  And where does she come from? How does Emmy Lou know? Or how is sheexpected to know? The population of school, in common with the parallelworld of Sunday school, has no background other than school itself, butassembling out of the unknown and segregated into Primer Class, FirstReader, Second Reader, even as Sunday school is segregated into InfantClass, Big Room, and Bible Class, performs its functions and disperses.Where, then, does Hattie come from?

  "She came out of the cloakroom, and she asked me to sit with her."

  Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise laughed. They have laughed at Emmy Lou beforein this sense and so have others. She has said "Madam and Eve" happilyand unsuspectingly all these years until Aunt Katie discovered it andnot only laughed but _told_, and Aunt Louise, in whose person andcarriage Emmy Lou takes pride, was a "blunette" until she found it outand laughed and told.

  A little boy at school as long ago as last year laughed and told a boynamed Billy who Emmy Lou had believed was her friend: "Ho, Teacher toldher to wait there for the present, and she thinks it's a present," Andat Sunday school a little girl laughed and told: "She thinks her nickel,that nickel in her hand, is going up to God."

  In consequence of these betrayals of a heart too faithfully shown and aconfidence too earnestly given, Emmy Lou is cautious now, laughterhaving become a lion in the path and ridicule a bear in the bush.

  A picture hangs above Aunt Cordelia's mantelpiece. It has been thereever since Emmy Lou came to make her home with her aunties, but she wasseven years old when she asked about it.

  "Where is the man going?" she said then to Aunt Cordelia. "What will thelions do to him?"

  "He is going _right onward_. The lions in his path will turn him asideif they can."

  "Correct," said Uncle Charlie overhearing. "But the lions can't turnthe trick. See the man's sword? And his buckler? The sword of hiscourage, and the buckler of the truth."

  "Who is the man?" Emmy Lou wanted to know.

  "The anxious pilgrim of all time," said Uncle Charlie.

  But Aunt Cordelia, taking Emmy Lou on her lap, explained. "The man isany one of us--you, me, Uncle Charlie, your little friends Maud andAlbert Eddie down at the corner, everybody. If we meet our lions as weshould, with courage and the truth, they, nor anything, can prevent ourgoing right onward."

  "Oh, let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, Be vigilant and quit themselves like men!"

  said Uncle Charlie.

  And now laughter has become a lion in Emmy Lou's path. Will Hattie, hernew friend, laugh at her? One can refrain from showing one's heart toAunt Katie and Aunt Louise, but in the world of school Emmy Lou needs afriend.

  Omniscience at home is strangely wanting about this world of school,perhaps because Emmy Lou's aunties in their days went to establishmentssuch as Mr. Parson's Select Academy, where the pupil is the thing, andschool and teachers even a bit unduly glad to have and hold her, whereasEmmy Lou at her school has not found herself in the least the thing.

  In saying she was to sit with Hattie she was implying that she wasgrateful indeed for the overture, whereas Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise,taking it the other way, ask who Hattie is and where she comes from.

  Aunt Katie said more: "We must find out something about her. Suppose youtry?"

  But Emmy Lou in one short day has divined all she needs to know, thoughshe does not know how to tell this to Aunt Katie. Hattie is Hattie,life a foe to be overcome, this world the lists, and Hattie thechallenged, her colors lowered or surrendered never, though the lance ofher spirit be shivered seventy times seven and her helmet of convictionsplintered.

  And Emmy Lou?--who, as complement to this divination, lovesHattie?--Emmy Lou, what with over-anxious debate, what with caution,what with weight of evidence and its considering, is the anxious pilgrimof all time, lions in the path and bears in the bush.

  Hurrying off to school the next morning to resume the grateful businessof sharing a desk with this new friend, Emmy Lou found Hattie waitingfor her at the gate even as she had said she would be, and life today,even as life yesterday from the initial moment of acquaintance withHattie, became crowded at once, even jostled and elbowed with happeningand information.

  As the two took their places in the line forming at the sound of theschool-bell, a little girl pushed in ahead of them where there was noplace until she by crowding made one. But she did not care for that andshowed it, her curls, which shone like Aunt Cordelia's copper hot-waterjug, tossing themselves, and her skirts flaunting.

  Hattie explained this. "She asked me to sit with her, that's why she'scrowding us now. Her name is Sally Carter. But I choose, I don't take myfriends." Her voice lowered and one gathered that following was anaccusation, even an indictment. "She's the richest little girl in theclass and wants you to know it. And she is an Episcopalian, too."

  Emmy Lou felt anxious. Would Hattie laugh? "I don't know what anEpiscopalian is."

  But she seemed to regard the admission as commendable. "Sally's churchgave an entertainment and called it for the orphans' fund, and she didthe Highland Fling on the stage."

  Emmy Lou had no idea what the Highland Fling was, either, but the linehad reached the entrance doorway beyond which speech is forbidden.Except for this, must she have said she did not know? Or might sherefrain from committing herself?

  For there are different ways of meeting your lions. Emmy Lou knew twoways. Last year at school a little girl stood up in the aisle for noreason but a disposition to do so. Promptly and sharp came the rap of apencil on the teacher's desk.

  Lion in the path of the little girl! Lion of reprimand! But the littlegirl threw dust in the lion's eyes. "Oh, didn't the bell ring foreveryone to stand?" she inquired. And sat down.

  There is another way. Emmy Lou walked in on her friends the Dawkins oneday, over the grocery at the corner, to find Albert Eddie in trouble.Possibly more than any person of Emmy Lou's acquaintance, he seemed ananxious pilgrim of all time too.

  "Stand right where you are," Sarah his big sister was saying to him."You've had something in your mouth again that you shouldn't. Don't tellme. Can't I smell it now I try?"

  Albert Eddie was sniffling, which with a little boy is the first step onthe road to crying. But he met his lion.

  "It's cigars off the catalpa tree," he wept, and went on into the nextroom and to bed even as Sarah had forewarned him.

  And so, as soon as Emmy Lou is free to speak, she must tell Hattie thatshe does not know what the Highland Fling is? Alas, that in theexigencies of sharing a desk with this person and incidentallyfulfilling the functions of the Second Reader she forgot to do so!

  At the school gate at the close of the day Hattie said, "Come go to thecorner with me, and I'll show you where I live."

  Go with Hattie? Her friend and more, her monitor and protector? Who theday through had steered her by the Charybdis of otherwise certainmistake, and past the Scylla of otherwise inevitable blunder? Go withher at her asking? Did rescued squire follow his protecting knight infealty of gratitude? Did faithful _Sancho_ fall in at heel at his_Quixote's_ bidding? Emmy Lou, who always went hurrying home because shewas bidden so to do, faced around today and went the other way.

  Hattie lived in a brick house in a yard. Pausing at her gate she made aproposition. "If you could go to my Sunday school I can come by and getyou."

  "I go to Sunday school," said Emmy Lou.

  Hattie was regretful but acquiescent. "Of course, if you go. I didn'tknow. I'll walk back with you and see where you live. I'm Presbyterian.What are you?"

  Having no idea what Pr
esbyterian was, how could Emmy Lou say in kindwhat she was?

  A little girl just arrived at a neighboring gate, an _habitue_ of theSecond Reader also, though Emmy Lou did not know her, joined Hattie andEmmy Lou as they passed. Hattie knew her and, such is the open sesame ofone achieved friend, Emmy Lou found that she was to be considered asknowing her also. Her name was Sadie.

  "I've just told her I'm Presbyterian," Hattie explained.

  "I'm Methodist," said Sadie. "That's my church across the street."

  Methodist is Sadie's church, and Presbyterian then is Hattie's? Thenames in both cases being abbreviated without doubt, and in seemlierphrase, St. Methodist and St. Presbyterian? Emmy Lou is on groundentirely familiar to her now, and she shifts her school-bag and herlunch-basket relievedly, for while the pilgrim must not fail to say shedoes not know when she does not, yet surely she may take advantage of aknowledge gained through finding out?

  "I go to St. Simeon's P. E. Church," she stated. "It's 'round on PlumStreet."

  "What sort of church is that?" said Hattie.

  "It's a stone church with a vine," said Emmy Lou, nor even underquestioning could she give further information.

  Reversing the idea of Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise, Hattie would seem tobe gradually finding out who and what Emmy Lou is? Friendship evidentlymust rest upon declared foundations. Emmy Lou goes to Sunday school andher church is on Plum Street. So far so good. But one and yet anotherlion faced, another and another spring up.

  "Have you taken the pledge?" asks Hattie.

  Emmy Lou in her time has taken the measles and also the chicken-pox, andmore latterly the whooping-cough. And also given it. But the pledge? Hasshe taken it, and failed to recall it? And is it desirable orundesirable that she should have taken it?

  "I've taken it," says Sadie in a tone that leaves no doubt that oneshould have taken it.

  While the pilgrim must scorn to throw dust in the eyes through evasion,may she not hope for advantage through finding out again? Or must shedefinitely draw her sword and face this lion by saying that she does notknow?

  Bob, the house-boy, sent to hunt her, is the instrument of her respite.He brought up before the advancing group. Time was when he would havesaid, "Reckon you is done forgot whut happened to thet li'l girl whutdidn't come straight home like she was tol'." But Emmy Lou is a big girland Bob acknowledges it. "Reckon you is done forgot whut happens aboutdessert for them that don't come on time to get it."

  The implication dismaying even Hattie and Sadie, they took leave of EmmyLou hastily.

  "You can tell us about your pledge another time," Hattie called. "Maybewe will come around to see you this afternoon to get better acquainted."

  Despite Bob's implication, Aunt Cordelia had saved some dessert for EmmyLou. By diligent application to her dinner she even caught up with theothers and thus achieved time for an inquiry. Was it on her mind thatHattie and Sadie might come around this afternoon?

  "What's the pledge?"

  "Which variety?" from Uncle Charlie. "It might be a toast."

  "Or a pawn," said Aunt Louise.

  "Or a surety," said Aunt Katie.

  "And also an earnest," from Uncle Charlie. "Take your choice."

  "Now stop mystifying her," said Aunt Cordelia. "There is altogether toomuch of it. I won't allow it. A pledge, Emmy Lou, such as you probablyare thinking about, is a promise. I daresay some of the little boys youknow have taken one. I hear it's quite the thing. Now, hurry. That's whyI sent Bob after you. Dancing school has been changed from Saturday toFriday afternoon, and you have only half an hour to dress and get there.Aunt Katie is going with you."

  "But," dismayed, "two little girls said maybe they would come to seeme."

  "Well, I'm sorry. I will see them for you if they come. Now, hurry."

  And Emmy Lou accordingly hurried. For while the claims of school are allvery well in Aunt Cordelia's regard, the claims of church, as Emmy Louunderstands these claims, are imperative. And, moreover, while schoolcenters itself and its activities within five days and its own fourwalls, St. Simeon's is the center of a clustering and revolvingseven-day system.

  On Monday Aunt Cordelia herself takes Emmy Lou to old Mrs. Angell'ssewing class for the little girls of the Sunday school at the rectorynext door to the church. On Thursday Aunt Louise takes her to thesinging class for the children of the Sunday school at the organist's,across the street from the church. And her aunties share among them theduty of getting her twice a week to dancing school, taught by MissEustasia, the niece of Dr. Angell, at her home next door on the otherside of St. Simeon's. The Church assembles its youthful populace here inforce as Emmy Lou grasps it, old Mr. Pelot, who taught Miss Eustasiaherself in her day and the mammas and papas of St. Simeon's in their daytoo, wielding a bow and violin and being her assistant.

  Dancing school! Emmy Lou, hurrying, is getting ready. School amongschools, secular, sewing, singing, or Sunday, of endeavor, effort, andanxious perturbation! Aunt Cordelia does her best to help Emmy Loualong. She takes her in the parlor from time to time, after dinner,after supper, and, sitting down to the piano, strikes the chords. AuntCordelia's playing has a tinkling, running touch, and her tunes have anold-fashioned sound.

  "_One_, two, three, start now--" Aunt Cordelia says. "Why didn't youstart when I said? Katie, go away from the door, you and Louise both.You have laughed at her dancing, and she won't do a thing while you arehere."

  Then again to the endeavor. _One_, two, three, _one_, two, three, alikethe chant and hope and stay of dancing. Emmy Lou starts right; she issure that her right foot leads out on time: but the difficulty is, thewhile she pantingly counts, to bring up the left foot on the moment.

  Uncle Charlie stops in the parlor doorway while he lights a cigar beforereturning downtown. "We might think the left foot was faithful to theChurch and only the right given over to the World, but that Eustasiaplys her art in the shadow of St. Simeon's."

  One foot to the Church and the other to the World? What does UncleCharlie mean? Are aspersions to be cast on dancing by other than itsvictims? Or can it be that Uncle Charlie, too, like Aunt Katie and AuntLouise, is laughing at her?

  But today Emmy Lou and Aunt Katie go hurrying off to dancing school,Emmy Lou in her Sunday dress devoted to St. Simeon's functions, carryingher slippers in their bag.

  Miss Eustasia's house is old and shabby. She lives here with her motherwho is Dr. Angell's sister, a lady who crosses her hands resignedly andsays to the mammas and visitors at dancing school, "Eustasia was notbrought up to this; Eustasia was raised with a right to the best."

  Aunt Katie and Emmy Lou hurry in the front door. Miss Eustasia in thelong parlor on one side of the hall is hurrying here and hurrying there,a little frown of bother and of earnestness between her brows,marshalling some classes into line, whirling others about face to facein couples. And old Mr. Pelot, tall and thin, with a grand manner and anarched nose, is rapping with his bow on the mantel and calling fororder. Mammas and visitors are in place along the wall, and Dr. Angell,who sometimes, as now, comes over from the rectory to look on, beams andtakes off his glasses and rubs them, and, putting them on, beams again.

  All of which is as it should be, as Emmy Lou understands it; and MissEustasia, born and baptized, brought up and confirmed, as it were, inthe church next door, had to have something to do. And St. Simeon's,gathering its children together, offered her this, and at the same timeprovided for Mr. Pelot, who, being on everybody's mind in his old age,also had to have something to do.

  And St. Simeon's did itself proud. As Aunt Katie and Emmy Lou came in,its Infant Class, as Emmy Lou from long association knew it, was out onthe floor taking its first position, while St. Simeon's Big Room,resolved into skirts, sashes, and curls, or neat shoes, smoothstockings, knickerbockers, jackets, broad collars, and ties, was waitingits turn to flutter lightly to places, or, bowing stiffly, go into dutystoutly. After which its Bible Class, now standing about in confidentialpairs, would go through their new figure in the cotillion sed
ately. Orso it was that Emmy Lou coming in in her Sunday dress and her slippersunderstood it.

  "Just in time," said Miss Eustasia to her briefly. "Get into line."

  The Infant Class withdrawing to get its breath, Emmy Lou finds herselfbetween Logan and Wharton in a newly forming line stretching across theroom. She is glad, because they are her friends, having gone with her onoccasion to the circus, and she can ask them about the pledge.

  To each nature of school its vernacular: rudiments and digits, head andfoot, medals and deportment, to the secular; bias and hem, whipping andbackstitch, to the sewing; chorus and refrain, louder please, nowsofter, to the singing; sponsors, catechism, texts, to the Sunday; andMiss Eustasia now is speaking to the class in the vernacular of thedancing school.

  "No, no, no," in discouragement of all attempts at conversation. "Eyesin front, everybody, on me, and take the first position. Now, right handon right hip, so. Left hand lifted above left shoulder, so. Right footout, heel first----"

  "What do you call it?" from Logan, desperate with his efforts. "Have wehad it before? What's its name?"

  "Its name," said Miss Eustasia severely, "is the Highland Fling."

  Emmy Lou found a moment before dispersal to interview Logan and Wharton."What's the pledge? Have you taken it?"

  "No, I haven't," said Logan, not so much curt as embittered, so onegathered, by his share in the afternoon.

  Wharton was more explicit. "We don't have pledges at our Sunday school."

  Emmy Lou knew another little boy, Albert Eddie. She went down to thecorner the next morning to see him. If the truth be told, she stillpreferred the snugness of life over a grocery to a house in a yard.

  Mrs. Dawkins, on what she called a pinch, went down in the grocery andhelped. She was there this Saturday morning, and Maud with her. Sarah inthe kitchen upstairs was mixing the Saturday baking in a crock, andAlbert Eddie, being punished, was in a corner on a stool.

  Politeness dictating that the person in durance be ignored, under thesecircumstances Emmy Lou immediately addressed herself to Sarah.

  "What's the pledge? Do you know anybody who's taken it?"

  Sarah brought Albert Eddie right into it, stool, corner, and all."Albert Eddie can tell you for he's just taken one. He's been a bad boyagain, and it wasn't catalpa cigars this time either. And after he'sbeen warned. I've made him promise now. Albert Eddie, turn round hereand say your pledge."

  * * * * *

  Monday morning found Emmy Lou at the school gate betimes. "I've got mypledge now," she told Hattie and Sadie eagerly, as together theyarrived.

  "Of course you have," from Hattie commendingly, "I knew you must havetaken one. Say yours."

  Emmy Lou said hers:

  "I'll never use tobacco, no, It is a filthy weed, I'll never put it in my mouth----"

  She stopped. As could be seen in the horrified faces of Hattie andSadie, something was wrong.

  "They taught you that at your Sunday school?" from Hattie.

  "You, a little girl----?" from Sadie.

  Whereupon the pilgrim, the pilgrim Emmy Lou, saw it all, saw that shehad but endeavored to throw dust into eyes, beginning with her own.

  "I didn't get my pledge at Sunday school, I got it from a little boy. Iasked him and he taught it to me. We don't have pledges at my Sundayschool."

  "We went to see you on Friday like we said, and you were out," saidHattie severely.

  "They changed the day and I had to go," from Emmy Lou. "I was at dancingschool."

  "Dancing school? Your Sunday school doesn't have pledges and you go todancing school? Your church lets you go? Like Sally Carter's? And youdidn't tell us?"

  "My church might give up pledges if it had to," said Sadie, "but itsfoot is down on dancing."

  Yet Hattie would be fair. "Your minister knows? What sort of dancing?What did you dance on Friday?"

  "Our minister was there. It is the Sunday school that dances. We dancedthe Highland Fling."

  The school bell rang.

  "Well," said Hattie as she turned to go, "I'm Presbyterian."

  Sadie bore witness as she turned to follow. "And I'm Methodist."

  Emmy Lou lifted her buckler and drew her sword. Never dust in the eyesagain. For she knew now what she was over and above being a St.Simeonite, having asked Aunt Cordelia. In this company it bore not onlythe odium of disapproval and the hall-mark of condemnation, but from thequalifying term applied to it by Aunt Cordelia would seem to merit both.

  "I'm a low church Episcopalian," said Emmy Lou, the pilgrim, stoutly ifwretchedly.

  When Emmy Lou reached home that day Aunt Katie brought up an old matter."Aunt Cordelia rather likes the looks of the little girl named Hattiewho came here. So I suppose it is all right for you to go on sittingwith her. What have you found out about her?"

  What Emmy Lou would have liked to find out was, would Hattie go onsitting with her? But how make those things clear to Aunt Katie?

  "Charlie," said Aunt Cordelia to her brother that night, "what on earthdo children mean? Emmy Lou as she was getting ready for bed asked me whyHattie's church and Sadie's church have the pledge and hers has theHighland Fling? It isn't possible that she has confused dancing andSunday school?"

  Uncle Charlie stared at his sister, then his shout rang to heaven.