Emmy Lou had no idea what a nintimate friend might be. She did not know what to do.
"Haven"t you got one?" demanded Hattie.
Emmy Lou shook her head.
Hattie put her lips close to Emmy Lou"s ear.
"Let"s us be nintimate friends," said Hattie.
Though small in knowledge, Emmy Lou was large in faith. She confessed herself as glad to be a nintimate friend.
When Emmy Lou found that to be a nintimate friend meant to walk about the yard with Hattie"s arm about her, she was glad indeed to be one.
Hitherto, at recess, Emmy Lou had known the bitterness of the outcast and the pariah, and had stood around, princ.i.p.ally in corners, to avoid being swept off her little feet by the big girls at play, and had gazed upon a paired-off and sufficient-unto-itself world.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Let"s us be nintimate friends.""]
Hattie seemed to know everything. In all the glory of its newness Emmy Lou brought her Second Reader to school. Hattie was scandalised. She showed her reader soberly encased in a calico cover.
Emmy Lou grew hot. She hid her Reader hastily. Somehow she felt that she had been immodest. The next day Emmy Lou"s Reader came to school discreetly swathed in calico.
Hardly had the Second Reader begun, when one Friday the music man came.
And after that he came every Friday and stayed an hour.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hattie."]
He was a tall, thin man, and he had a point of beard on his chin that made him look taller. He wore a blue cape, which he tossed on a chair.
And he carried a violin. His name was Mr. Cato. He drew five lines on the blackboard, and made eight dots that looked as though they were going upstairs on the lines. Then he rapped on his violin with his bow, and the cla.s.s sat up straight.
"This," said Mr. Cato, "is A," and he pointed to a dot. Then he looked at Emmy Lou. Unfortunately Emmy Lou sat at a front desk.
"Now, what is it?" said Mr. Cato.
"A," said Emmy Lou, obediently. She wondered. But she had met A in so many guises of print and script that she accepted any statement concerning A. And now a dot was A.
"And this," said Mr. Cato, "is B, and this is C, and this D, and E, F, G, which brings us naturally to A again," and Mr. Cato with his bow went up the stairway punctuated with dots.
Emmy Lou wondered why G brought one naturally to A again.
But Mr. Cato was tapping up the dotted stairway with his bow. "Now what are they?" asked Mr. Cato.
"Dots," said Emmy Lou, forgetting.
Mr. Cato got red in the face and rapped angrily.
"A," said Emmy Lou, hastily, "B, C, D, E, F, G, H," and was going hurriedly on when Hattie, with a surrept.i.tious jerk, stopped her.
"That is better," said Mr. Cato, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--exactly--but we are not going to call them A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A--" Mr. Cato paused impressively, his bow poised, and looked at Emmy Lou--"we are going to call them"--and Mr. Cato touched a dot--"do"--his bow went up the punctuated stairway--"re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. Now what is this?" The bow pointed itself to Emmy Lou, then described a curve, bringing it again to a dot.
"A," said Emmy Lou. The bow rapped angrily on the board, and Mr. Cato glared.
"Do," said Mr. Cato, "do--always do--not A, nor B, nor C, never A, nor B, nor C again--do, do," the bow rapping angrily the while.
"Dough," said Emmy Lou, swallowing miserably.
Mr. Cato was mollified. "Forget now it was ever A; A is do here. Always in the future remember the first letter in the scale is do. Whenever you meet it placed like this, A is do, A is do."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy Lou just arriving with her school-bag, went in, too."]
Emmy Lou resolved she would never forget. A is dough. How or why or wherefore did not matter. The point was, A is dough. But Emmy Lou was glad when the music man went. And then came spelling, when there was always much bobbing up and down and changing of places and tears. This time the rest might forget, but Emmy Lou would not. It came her turn.
She stood up. Her word was Adam. And A was dough. Emmy Lou went slowly to get it right. "Dough-d-dough-m, Adam," said Emmy Lou.
They laughed. But Dear Teacher did not laugh. The recess-bell rang. And Dear Teacher, holding Emmy Lou"s hand, sent them all out. Everyone must go. Desks and slates to be scrubbed, mattered not. Everyone must go.
Then Dear Teacher lifted Emmy Lou to her lap. And when she was sure they were every one gone, Emmy Lou cried. And after a while Dear Teacher explained about A and do, so that Emmy Lou understood. And then Dear Teacher said, "You may come in." And the crack of the door widened, and in came Hattie. Emmy Lou was glad she was a nintimate friend. Hattie had not laughed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "It was Emmy Lou"s joy to gather her doll children in line, and giving out past lessons, recite them ... for her children."]
But that day the carriage which took Dear Teacher to and from her home outside of town--the carriage with the white, woolly dog on the seat by the little coloured-boy driver and the spotted dog running behind--stopped at Emmy Lou"s gate. And Dear Teacher, smiling at Emmy Lou just arriving with her school-bag, went in, too, and rang the bell.
Then Dear Teacher and Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise sat in the parlour and talked.
And when Dear Teacher left, all the aunties went out to the gate with her, and Uncle Charlie, just leaving, put her in the carriage, and stood with his hat lifted until she was quite gone.
"At her age----" said Aunt Cordelia.
"To have to teach----," said Aunt Katie.
"How beautiful she must have been----" said Aunt Louise.
"Is----" said Uncle Charlie.
"But she has the little grandchild," said Aunt Cordelia; "she is keeping the home for him. She is happy." And Aunt Cordelia took Emmy Lou"s hand.
That very afternoon Aunt Louise began to help Emmy Lou with her lessons, and Aunt Cordelia went around and asked Hattie"s mother to let Hattie come and get her lessons with Emmy Lou.
And at school Dear Teacher, walking up and down the aisles, would stop, and her fingers would close over and guide the labouring digits of Emmy Lou, striving to copy within certain ruled lines upon her slate the writing on the blackboard:
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Emmy Lou began to learn. As weeks went by, now and then Emmy Lou bobbed up a place, although, sooner or later, she slipped back. She was not always at the foot.
But no one, not even Dear Teacher, who understood so much, realised one thing. The day after a lesson, Emmy Lou knew it. On the day it was recited, Emmy Lou had lacked sufficient time to grasp it.
With ten words in the spelling lesson, Emmy Lou listened, letter by letter, to those ten droned out five times down the line, then twice again around the cla.s.s of fifty. Then Emmy Lou, having already laboured faithfully over it, knew her spelling lesson.
And at home, it was Emmy Lou"s joy to gather her doll children in line, and giving out past lessons, recite them in turn for her children. And so did Emmy Lou know by heart her Second Reader as far as she had gone; she often gave the lesson with her book upside down. And an old and battered doll, dearest to Emmy Lou"s heart, was always head, and Hattie, the newest doll, was next. Even the Emmy Lous must square with Fate somehow.
Along in the year a new feature was introduced in the Second Reader. The Second Reader was to have a Medal. Dear Teacher did not seem enthusiastic. She seemed to dread tears. But it was decreed that the school was to use medals.