xt71vh5cc83z https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt71vh5cc83z/data/mets.xml Martin, George Madden, 1866- 1916  books b92-226-31183462 English Grosset & Dunlalp, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Children's literature. Emmy Lou's road to grace  : being a little pilgrim's progress / by George Madden Martin. text Emmy Lou's road to grace  : being a little pilgrim's progress / by George Madden Martin. 1916 2002 true xt71vh5cc83z section xt71vh5cc83z 













EMMY LOU'S ROAD TO GRACE

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"'Its name,' said AMiss Eustasia severely, 'is the Highland
                       Fling.' "
                                             [PAGE 152]

 





EMMY



LOU'S



ROAD TO GRACE

BEING A LITTLE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

               BY
 GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN



AUTHOR OF EMMY LOU, ETC.


What danger is the pilgrim in!
  How mnany ac hts]oes!
  How mqny ways there are to sin
  No 1iving moptal knows.
          -T1HE PTLGRIM'S PROGRESS



G R O S S E T
P UB L I S H E R S



& DUNLAP
   NEW YORK



Mdde us tr. .Uwtd      nkms oi AvaIic



I

 





















          Copyimirr, 1916, BY
    06 APPLETOe.' AND COMPANY



























Printed in the United States of America

 


























            TO
THAT HOSTAGE GIVEN TO THH FUTtB

   THE AMERICAN CAd12)

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PREFACE



  SOME years ago a collection of short stories under
the title, "Emnmy Lou: Her Book And Heart," was
offered to the American public as a plea for and a
defense of the child as affected by the then prevailing
stupidity of the public schools.
  The present series of stories is written to show
that the same conditions which in the school make for
confusion in the child's mind, exist in the home,
in the Sunday school and in all its earlier points of
contact with life; the child who presents itself at
six or even at five, to the school and teacher, being
already well on the way in the school of life, and
its habits of mind established.
  It is the contention of these new stories that
the child comes single-minded to the experience of
life. That it brings to this experience a fundamen-
tal, if limited, conception of ethics, justice, con-
sistency and obligation. That it is the possessor of
an innate conscience that teaches it to differentiate
                        v.

 



Preface



between right and wrong, and that the failure to
find an agreement between ethics and experience con-
fronts the child long before its entrance at school.
   Not only do its conceptions fail to square with
life as it finds it, but the practices and habits of
the persons it looks up to fail to square with what
these elders claim for life. Further, the child meets
with an innate stupidity on the part of its elders
that school cannot surpass, a stupidity which as-
sumes knowledge on the child's part that it cannot
possibly have.
  These conditions make for confusion in the child's
mind, and a consequent impairment of its reasoning
faculties, before it presents itself to the school.
  Given the very young child struggling to evolve
its working rule out of nebula, how do its elders
aid it The isolated fact without background or
connection, the generalization with no regard to
its particular application, the specific rule that will
not fit the general case-these too often are its por-
tion, resulting in lack of perspective, no sense of pro-
portion, and no grasp of values. The child's concep-
tions of the cardinal virtues, the moral law, the
fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Christ,
                        Viii

 


Preface



the human relation, are true, garbled, or false,
in accordance with the interpreting of its elders.
  The child thus has been in the training of the
home, the neighborhood, and the Sunday school,
for approximately four, three, and two years re-
spectively, before it comes to the school of letters.
  One of the intelligences thrashing out the prob-
lems of the school today, says:
  "Education begins at the age of two or sooner,
whether the parent wills it or not. The home influ-
ence from two to six, for good or ill in determin-
ing the mental no less than the moral status, is the
most permanent thing in the child's life. Even at the
age of five, the difficulty for the teacher in making
a beginning, lies in the fact that the beginning al-
ready has been made."
  In the original stories portraying the workings
of the schoolroom on the mind of the child, the
physically normal, mentally sound but slow type
was used, in the child called Emmy Lou, and in now
seeking to show that the conditions making for more
or less permanent confusion in the child's mind an-
tedate the schoolroom, it has seemed wise to make
use of the same child in the same environment.
                        ix

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               CONTENTS
CAPTER                                   PAGE
   I. OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM
         SUN  .                      .      3
  II. SHADES OF THE PRISON HousE.          35
  III. A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW
         PLAIN RULES    .      .   .   .   65
 IV. THE TRIBtNAL OF CONSCIENCE    .   .  95
 V. LIONS IN THE PATI.   .    .   .   . 131
 VI. THE IMPERFECT OFFICES OF PRAYER     . 161
 VII. PINK TICNETS FOR TEXTS.  .           195
 VIII. STERN DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE OF GOD . 223
 IX. So BUILD WE UP THE BEING THAT WE
         ARE  .   .   .    .   .   .    . 255
  X. So TRUWH BE IN THE FIELD      .   . 279

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           IL

OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO
     THE WARM SUN

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I



OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM
                   SUN

  Fon a day or two after Emmy Lou, four
years old, came to live with her uncle and her
aunties, or in fact until she discovered Izzy
who lived next door and Sister who lived in
the alley, Aunt Cordelia's hands were full.
But it was Emmy Lou's heart that was full.
  Along with other things which had made
up life, such as Papa, and her own little white
bed, and her own little red chair, anid her own
window with its sill looking out upon her own
yard, and Mary the cook in Mary's owxn kitch-
en, and Georgie the little neighbor boy next
door-along with these things, she wanted
Mamma.
  Not only because she was Mamma, all-wise,



2



3

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



all-final, all-decreeing, but because, being
Mamma and her edicts therefore supreme, she
had bade her little daughter never to forget to
say her prayers.
  Not that 'Emmy Lou had forgotten to say
them. Not she! It was that when she went
to say them she had forgotten what she was to
say. A terrifying and unlooked-for contin-
gency.
  Two days before, Papa had put his Emmy
Lou into the arms of Aunt Cordelia at the
railroad station of the city where she and Aunt
Katie and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie
lived. They had come to the train to get her.
As he did so, Mamma, for whose sake the trip
south was being made in search of health,
though Emmy Lou did not know this, smiled
and tried to look brave.
  Emmy Lou's new little scarlet coat with its
triple capes was martial, and also her new
little scarlet Napoleon hat, three-cornered with
                    4

 



Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun

a cockade, and Papa hastened to assume that
the little person within this exterior was mar-
tial also.
  "Emmy Lou is a plucky soul and will not
willingly try you, Cordelia," he told his sister-
in-law.
  "Emmy Lou is a faithful soul and has prom-
ised not to try you," said Man-mma.
  "Kiss M1amma and kiss me," said Papa.
  "And say your prayers every night at Aunt
Cordelia's knee," said Mamma.
  "Pshaw," said Uncle Charlie, the brother
of Mamma and the aunties, and wheeling
about and whipping out his handkerchief he
blew his nose violently.
  "Brother!" said Aunt Katie reproachfully.
Aunt Katie was younger than Mamma and al-
most as pretty.
"Brother Charlie!" said Aunt Louise who
was the youngest of them all, even more re-
proachfully.
                    '5

 



Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



  "Shall I send her to Sunday school at our
church, or at your church" said Aunt Cor-
delia, plump and comfortable, and next to
Uncle Charlie in the family succession. For
Papa's church was different, though Emmy
Lou did not know this either-and when
Mamma had elected to go with him there had
been feeling.
  "So she finds God's blessing, Sister Cor-
delia, what does it matter" said 'Mamma a
little piteously. "And she'll say her prayer
every night and every morning to you"
  On reaching home, Aunt Cordelia spoke
decidedly. "Precious baby! We'll give her
her supper and put her right into her little
bed. She's worn out with the strangeness of
it all."
  Aunt Cordelia was right. Emmy Lou was
worn out and more, she was bewildered and
terrified with the strangeness of it all. But
though her flaxen head, shorn now of its brave
                    6

 



Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Swn



three-cornered hat, fell forward well-nigh into
her supper before more than a beginning was
made, and though when carried upstairs by
Uncle Charlie she yielded passively to Aunt
Cordelia and Aunt Katie undressing her, too
oblivious, as they deemed her, to be cognizant
of where she was, they reckoned without know-
ing their Emmy Lou.
  Her head came through the opening of the
little gown slipped on her.
  "Shall I say it now" she asked.
  "Her prayer. She hasn't forgotten, pre-
cious baby," said Aunt Cordelia and sat down.
Aunt Katie who had been picking up little
garments, melted into the shadows beyond
the play and the flicker of the fire in the
grate, and Emmy Lou, steadied by the
hand of Aunt Cordelia, went down upon her
knees.
For there are rules. Just as inevitably as
there are rites. And since life is hedged about
                    7

 



        Emmy Lou's Road to Grare

with rites, as varying in their nature as in their
purpose, and each according to its purpose at
once inviolate and invincible, it is for an Emmy
Lou to concern herself with remembering their
rules.
  As when she goes out on the sidewalk to
play "I-spy" with Georgie, the masterful
little boy from next door, and his friends.
Whereupon and unvaryingly follows the rite.
The rule being that all stand in a row, and
while the moving finger points along the line,
words cabalistic and potent in their spell crypt-
ically and irrevocably search out the quaking
heart of the one who is "It."
  So in the kitchen. The rule being that
Mary, who is young and pretty and learning
to cook under Mamma's tutelage, shall chant
earnestly over the crock as she mixes, words
which again are talismanic and potent in their
spell, as "one of butter, two of sugar, three of
flour, four eggs," or Mary's cake infallibly
                     8

 



Out of God's Blessing Into the W7arm Sun



will fall in the oven, stable affair as the oven
grating seems to be.
  And again at meals, rite of a higher class,
solemn and mysterious. When Emmy Lou
must bow her head and shut her eyes-what
would happen if she basely peeked she hasn't
an idea-after which, Papa's "blessing" as
it is called, having been enunciated according
to rule, she may now reach out with intrepidity
and touch tumbler or spoon or biscuit.
  So with prayer, highest rite of all, most
solemn and most mysterious. Prayer being
that potency of the impelling word again by
which Something known as God is to be propi-
tiated, and one protected from the fearful if
dimly sensed terrors of the dark when one
comes awake in the night.
  Emmy Lou's Mamma, hitherto the never-
failing refuge from all that threatened, haven
of encircling sheltering arms and brooding
tender eyes, provided this protection for her
                     9

 



Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



Emmy Lou before she went away and left her.
And more. She gave Emmy Lou to under-
stand that somewhere, if one grasped it aright,
was a person tenderly in league with Mamma
in loving Emmy Lou, and in desiring to com-
fort her and protect her. A person named
Jesus. He was to be reached through prayer
too, and, like God in this also, through Sunday
school, this being a place around the corner
where one went with Georgie, the little boy
from next door.
  These things being made clear, no wonder
that Mamma bade her Emmy Lou not to fail
to go to Sunday school, and never to forget to
say her prayers!
  And no wonder that Emmy Lou quite ear-
nestly knew the rules for her prayers. That
it hurt her knees to get down upon them had
nothing to do with the case. The point with
which one has to do is that she does get down
on them. And being there, as now, steadied ti
                   10

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



that position by the hand of Aunt Cordelia,
she shuts her eyes, as taught by Mamma,
though with no idea as to why, and folds her
hands, as taught by Mamma, with no under-
standing as to why, and lowers her head, as
taught by Mamma, on Aunt Cordelia's knee.
And the rules being now all complied with, she
prays.
  But Emmy Lou did not pray.
  "Yes" from Aunt Cordelia.
  But still Emmy Lou failed to pray. In-
stead her head lifted, and her eyes, opening,
showed themselves to be dilated by apprehen-
sion. "Mamma starts it when it won't come,"
she faltered.
  Aunt Cordelia endeavored to start it. "Now
I lay me . . ." she said with easy conviction.
  Emmy Lou, baby person, never had heard
of it. Terror crept into the eyes lifted to Aunt
Cordelia, as well as apprehension.
"Our Father . . ." said Aunt Katie, com-
                   11

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



ing forward from the shadows. Errimy Lou's
attention seemed caught for the moment and
held.
        which art in Heaven," said Aunt
Katie.
  Emmy Lou shook her head. She never had
heard of that either, though for a moment it
appeared as if she thought she had. A tear
rolled down.
  "Go to bed and it will come to you tomor-
row," from Aunt Cordelia.
  "Say it in the morning instead," from Aunt
Katie.
  But Emmy Lou shook her head, and clung
to Aunt Cordelia's knees when they would lift
her up.
  Aunt Cordelia was worn out, herself. One
does not say good-bye to a loved sister, and
assume the care of a chubby, clinging baby
such as this one, without tax. "Whatever
is to be done about it" she said to Aunt
                   12

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



Katie despairingly. Then to Ernmy Lou,
"Isn't there anything you know that will
do"
  There are varying rites, differing in their
nature as in their purpose, but each according
to its purpose inviolate and invincible.
  "I kinow Geor-ie's count out" said Emmy
Lou. "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo Whill that
do'!"
  But Aunt Cordelia, however sorely tempted,
could not bring herself, honest soul, to agree
that it would. Nor yet Aunt Katie.
  Aunt Louise came tipping in and joined
them.
  "I know Mlary's cake count," said Emmy
Lou. "'One of butter, two of sugar, three of
flour, four eggs.' Will that do"
  Not even Aunt Louise could agree that it
would.
  Uncle Charlie came tipping in.
  "I know Papa's blessing," said Emmy Lou.
                    13

 


       Emmy Lou's Road to Grace

"'We thank Thee, Lord. for this provision
of Thy bounty . . . 7' "
  "The very thing," said Uncle Charlie heart-
ily. "Set her up on her knees again, Cordelia,
and let her say it."
  And Papa's blessing had served now, night
and morning, since, though it was evident to
those about her that Ernmy Lou was both du-
bious and uneasy.
  The processes of the mind of an Emrnmy Lou.
however, if slow, are sound, if we know their
premises. There was yet another way by
which God could be propitiated, and Jesus,
who desired to love her and protect her,
reached. On the morning of her third day
with her aunties, she inquired about this.
  "WNhen is Sunday school"
  They told her. "Today is Saturday. Sun-
day school is tomorrow."
  She took this in. "WXill I go to Sunday
school"
                    14

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the War-m Sun

   "Certainly you will go."
   She took this in also. So far it was reas-
 suring, and she moved to the next point,
 though nobody connected the two inquiries.
 "There's a little boy next door"
 "Yes," from Aunt Katie, "a little boy with
 dark and lovely eyes."
 "A sweet and gentle little boy," from Aunt
 Cordelia.
 "A little boy named Izzy," from Aunt
 Louise.
 Emmy Lou, looking from auntie to auntie
 as each spoke, sighed deeply. The rules in
 life, as she knew it, were holding good. As,
 for example, was not Aunt Cordelia here for
 Mamma And Uncle Charlie for Papa And
 the substitute little white bed for her little
 bed And the substitute little armchair where-
in she was sitting at the moment, for her chair
  To be sure the details varied. Hitherto the
cook in the kitchen had been Mary, pink-
                    15

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



cheeked and pretty. Whereas now the cook
in the kitchen not only is round and rolling and
colored and named Aunt MI'randy, but there
is a house-boy in the kitchen, too, whose name
is Bob. The stabilizing fact remains, how-
ever, that there is a cook, and there is a
kitchen.
  And now there is a little boy next door. For
you to go to Sunday school with the little boy
next door, holding tight to his hand, while his
Mamma at his door, and your Mlamma at
your door, watch you down the street. That
'he lords it over you, edicting each thing you
shall or shall not do along the way, is accord-
ing to immutable ruling also, as Georgie makes
clear, on the incontrovertible grounds that you
are the littler.
  He has been to Sunday school too, before
you ever heard of it, as he lets you know, and
glories in his easy knowledge of the same.
And whereas you, on your very first Sunday,
                    16

 

Out of God's Blessing Into the WJarm Sun



get there to learn that Cain killed Mabel, and
are visibly terrified at the fate of Mabel, ac-
cording to Georgie it is a mild event and noth-
ing to what Sunday school has to offer at its
best.
  HIe knows the comportment of the place,
too, and at the proper moment drags Emmy
Lou to her knees with her face crushed to the
wooden bench beside his own. And later he
upbraids her that she fails in the fervor with
which he and everybody else, including the
lady who told Emmy Lou she was glad to see
her, pour forth a hum of words. lVhen he
finds she does not know these words his scorn
is blighting. Though when she asks him to
teach them to her, it develops that he, the
mighty one, only knows a word here and there
to come in loud on himself.
  For a moment, the other night, Emmy Lou
had fancied Aunt Katie was saying these
words used at Sunday school, but how could
                   17

 

Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



she be sure, seeing that she did not know them
herself 
  And now there was a little boy next door
here! And Emmy Lou arose, her aunties hav-
ing gone about their Saturday morning affairs,
and seeking her little sacque with its scalloped
edge, which she pulled on, and her little round
hat which she carried by its elastic, went forth
into the warm comfort of the Indian Summer
morning to find him.
  He was at his gate! The rule again!
Georgie was ever to be found even so at his
gate. Emmy Lou was shy, but not when she
knew what she had to do, and why. Opening
her gate and going out, paling by paling she
went along past her house and her yard, to the
little boy at the gate of his house and his yard.
When he saw her coming he even came to meet
her.
  As her aunties had said, he was a dark-eyed
and lovely little boy. When she reached him
                   18

 

Out of God's Blessing Into the WVarm Sun



and put out her hand to his, he took it and led
her back to his gate with him. His namne, she
remembered, was Izzy.
  "Sunday school is tomorrow" she sai d, look-
ing tip at Izzy.
  "Sunday school" said Izzy.
  "Where Cain killed Mabel"
  Izzy's dark eyes lit. He was a gentle and
kindly little boy. Emmy Lou felt she would
love Izzy. "We call it 'Temple.' But it is
today. My Mamma told me to walk ahead
an(l she would catch up with me."
  "Today"
  Surely. With such visible proofs of it upon
Izzy. Do little boys wear velvet suits weith
spotless collar and flamboyant tie but for oc-
casions such as Sunday school Auinties and
even Mammas know less about Sunday school
than the Georgies and Izzys, who are authori-
ties since they are the ones who go. Emmy
Lou put on her little hat even to the elas-



8



19

 

Eimmy Lou's Road to Grace



tic. Then her hand went into Izzy's again.
   "I thought it was tomorrow"
   Izzy's face was alight as he took in her
meaning. She was going with him. His face
was alight as he led her along.
  "It's 'round the corner" she asked.
  "'Round two corners," said Izzy. "How
did you know"
  A golden dome crowned this Sunday school,
and wide steps led high to great doors. They
waited at their foot, Izzy and Emmy Lou, a
dark-eyed little boy in a velvet suit, and a
blue-eyed little girl in a gingham dress and
scalloped sacque, while others went up and in,
old men, young men, old women, young
women, little boys, little girls. Waited until
Izzy's Mamma arrived and found him.
  She was dark-eyed and lovely too. She lis-
tened while he explained. Did a shadow, as
of patient sadness, cross her face
  "The little girl does not understand, Israel,
                   20

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



little son," she said. "Hold her hand care-
fully, and take her back to her own gate. I
will wait for you here."
  Emmy Lou, bewildered as she was led along,
endeavored to understand.
  "It isn't Sunday school" she asked Izzy.
  His face was no longer alight, only gentle
and, like his mother's, patient. "Not yours.
I thought it was. Aline and my mother's and
my father's."
  Little girls left at their own gates, little girls
who have come to live at their aunties' home,
go around by the side way to the kitchen door.
Emmy Lou had learned that already. If any-
one ha' missed her there was no evidence of
it. Aunt M'randy, just emerging from this
kitchen door, a coal-bucket heaped with ashes
in her hand, as Emmy Lou arrived there,
paused in her rolling gait, and invited her to
go.
Where Emmy Lou in her little sacque and
                   921

 



Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



her round hat hadn't an idea, but seeing that
she was expected to accept, took Aunt M'ran-
dy's unoccupied hand and went.
  And so it was that she found Sister. For
Aunt M'randy was going down the length of
the back yard, a nice yard with a tree and a
bush and what, palpably in a milder hour had
been flowers in a border, to the alley-gate to
empty the ashes. And beyond this alley gate,
outside which stood the barrel they were
seeking, in the alley itself, with the cottage
shanties of the alley world for background,
stood Sister! One knew she was Sister because
Aunt M'randy called her so.
  Sister was small and brown and solid. Small
enough to be littler than Emmy Lou. Her
face was serious-and her eyes in their setting
of generous white followed one wonderingly.
  Littler than Emrnmy Lou! The rule in life
was extending itself. Hitherto she, Emmy
Lou, had been that littler one, and hers the eyes
                    22

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



to follow wonderingly, and the effect of
meeting one thus littler than oneself is to ex-
perience strange joys, palpably and patently
peculiar to being the larger.
  Emmy Lou dropped the hand of Aunt
M'randy and went out into the alley and
straight to Sister.
  Nor did Sister seem surprised at this, but
when Emmy Lou reached her and paused,
sidled closer, and her little brown hand crept
into Emmy Lou's white one and clung there.
Whereupon the white one, finding itself the
bigger, closed on the brown one and Emmy
Lou led Sister in through the alley gate, past
Aunt M'randy, and up through the yard with
its tree and its bush and its whilom flower
border.
  More! There was a depression in the pave-
ment leading up to the house, a depression all
of the depth of about three of Emmy Lou's
fingers. Whereat she stopped, and putting her
                   23

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



arms about Sister, solid for all she was a
baby thing, with straining and accession of
pink in the face, lifted her over! And the joy
of it was great! Emmy Lou never had met
one littler than herself before!

  That evening at dusk, Aunt Louise came
in, brisk and animated. Her news was for
Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie, though cer-
tainly Emmy Lou had a right to be interested.
  "I met Molly Wright, the teacher of the
infant class at Sunday school," she said, "and
I stopped and told her that in the morning you
would send Emmy Lou around to her class.
That our house-boy would bring her."
  Aunt Cordelia had her ready the next morn-
ing aforetime, red coat with triple capes, mar-
tial hat and all, ready indeed before Bob, the
house-boy, had finished his breakfast.
  The day was warm and sleepily sunny and
Smiling.

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm inSu



  "You may go outside and wait for Bob at
the gate if you like," Aunt Cordelia told
lEmmy Lou.
  But Emmy Lou had no idea of waiting at
any gate. Indecision with her was largely a
matter of not knowing what she was expected
to do. She knew in this case. By the time Bob
was ready and out looking for her, she had
been down through the alley gate and back,
bringing by the hand that person littler than
herself, Sister. Had led her through the front
gate and along to the next gate where Izzy
was standing.
  Bob afterward explained his part vocifer-
ously if lamely. But as Aunt M'randy said,
that was Bob.
  "There they wuz, the three uv 9em, strung
erlong by the ban's an' waitin' foh me. Seem
lak there warn't no call foh me to say nothin'
tell we got there."
  "And then" from Aunt Cordelia, while
                   25

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



Aunt M'randy sniffed with skepticism.
  "When we come to the infant class door
roun' on the side street like you tol' me, there
wuz a colored boy I know, drivin' a kerridge,
an' he called me. An' I tol' the chil'ren to
wait while I spoke to him. When I turned
roun' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah.
An' I come home."
  Emmy Lou in truth led them in. Give her
something that she knew to do, and she could
do it. Holding to the rule, Izzy was due to
be there because he was the larger, and Sister,
laconic little Sister, solid and brown, was due
to be there because, in the former likeness of
Emnmy Lou, she was the littler.
  One's place at Sunday school in company
with Georgie, has been the front bench. The
rule holds good, and Ernmy Lou led the way
to the front bench now, where she and Izzy
lifted Sister to a place, then took their own
places either side of her. If the rest of the
                    26

 

Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



infant class already assembled were absorbed
in these movements, Enmmy Lou did not no-
tice it, in that she was absorbed in them her-
self.
  Miss Mollie Wright came in next, breezy
and brisk and a minute late, and in conse-
quence full of zeal and business.
  Hitherto the rule has never varied. As
Emmy Lou knew Sunday school, the lady
teacher now says, "Good morning, children."
And these say, "Good morning," in return.
  But the rule varied now.   Mliss MNollie
Wlright coming around to the front before the
assembled class on its several benches, stopped,
looked, then full of sureness and business came
to Izzy and Emmy Lou and Sister, and took
Izzy by the hand.
  "I doubt if your mother and father would
like it, Izzy," she said. "I think you had bet-
ter run home again. And this little girl next
to you doesn't belong here either." Miss Mol-
                    27

 

Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



lie Wright was lifting Sister down. "I think
she had better run along as you go." And in
the very nicest way she started Izzy and Sister
toward the door. "What" turning back to
the third little figure in a martial coat with
triple capes and a martial hat. "WVhy, are
you going, too"
  Aunt Cordelia explained to Aunt Katie
and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie after-
ward. "M31'randy saw them when they reached
home and passed her kitchen window going
back through the yard, and came and told
me, and she and I went down to the alley
gate after them."
  "What were they doing " asked Aunt
Louise.
  Aunt Cordelia answered as one completely
exasperated and outdone. "Sitting right down
on the ground there in the alley, in their Sun-
day clothes, watching M'lissy, on her door-
step, comb Letty's hair."
                    28

 

Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun



  True! Around MI'lissy, the mother of Sis-
ter, brown herself and kindly, with teeth that
flashed white with the smile of her there in the
sun,, and Letty, the even littler sister of Sis-
ter, firm planted on the lowest step, between
M'lissy's knees.
  And bliss unspeakable as Izzy and Sister
and Emmy Lou in a circle on the ground
arouind the doorstep watched. For Letty's
head, by means of the comb in M'lissy's band,
was being crisscrossed by partings into sec-
tions, Ii-sections, and quarter-sections, and
such hlair as was integral to each wrapped with
string in semblance of a plait, plait after plait
succeeding one another over Letty's head. The
while MA'lissy sang in a mounting, joyful
chant, interrupted by Letty's outcry now and
then beneath the vigor of the ministration.
  "Ow-w, Mammy!"
  The chant would hold itself momentarily for
a reply.
                    29

 


Emmy Lout's Road to Grace



  "Shet up," M'lissy would say.
  Which would be too much even for laconic
Sister who from her place on the ground be-
tween Izzy and Emmy Lou would defend
Letty. "When Mammy wrops yer h'ar, she
wrops hard."
  After which the combing and the wrapping
and the chanting would go on again, M'lissy's
voice rising and falling in quaverings and
minors:

     "Come to Jesus, come to Jesus,
     Come to Jesus just now,
     Ju-u-st no-o-w co-o-me to-o Jesus,
     Come to Jesus ju-u-st now."

  Mamma's friend! In league with her in
loving Emmy Lou and desiring to comfort her
and protect her! Found not where she had
looked for Him at all but here with M'lissy in
the alley!
  That night, according to rule, as Emmy
                   80

 


Out of God's Blessing Into the Warm Sun

Lou's head came through the opening of the
gown slipped over it, she said:
  "Shall I say it now Papa's blessing"
  And A-unt Cordelia, according to rule, sit-
ting down and steadying Emmy Lou to her
knees, waited.
  What should have brought it back, Emmy
Lou's own little prayer as taught her by
Mamma She only knew that it came of itself,
and that while her heart heaved and her breath
came hard, she stopped in the midst of Papa's
blessing, "We thank Thee, Lord, for this pro-
vision of Thy bounty,    "' sobbed, caught
herself, opened her eyes and looked mutely at
Aunt Cordelia, closed them and said:

       "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
       Look upon a little child;
       Pity my simplicity,
       Suffer me to come to Thee."

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            II

SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE

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II



     SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE

  PAPA taking Mamma south, wherever that
may be, in search of health, whatever that may
be, carried a rough and wrinkled Father Bear
satchel.  Mamma, pretty   Mamma, taken
soulth in search of health, carried a soft and
5;smooth Mother Bear satchel. And since not
WCyO I (lo journeys demand satchels but analo-
gies must he made complete, Emmy Lou left,
on the way in the keeping of her uncle and her
aunties was made happy by a Baby Bear
papwir-machc satchel, clamps, straps and all.
A satchel into which a nightgown could be
coaxed, her nightgown, since satchels demand
gowns, not to mention a pewNter tea set put in
on her own initiative, provided she folded and



A



35

 


Emmy Lou's Road to Grace



refolded the gown with zeal before essaying
the attempt.
  After Emmy Lou's establishment in the
new household, Aunt Cordelia proposed that
the satchel go to the attic where trunks and
satchels off duty belong. But Emmy Lou
would not hear to this. "Mamma's coming l)y
for me as she goes home, and I want it down
here so I can have it ready."
  "And she gets it ready at least once a (lay,"
Aunt Cordelia told Uncle Charlie. "If she
doesn't wear her gowns out trying to put them
in it, she will the satchel. However, since she
heard that her mother lived in this