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

by Howard Roger Garis

  I

  OUT OF GOD'S BLESSING INTO THE WARM SUN

  FOR a day or two after Emmy Lou, four years old, came to live with heruncle and her aunties, or in fact until she discovered Izzy who livednext door and Sister who lived in the alley, Aunt Cordelia's hands werefull. But it was Emmy Lou's heart that was full.

  Along with other things which had made up life, such as Papa, and herown little white bed, and her own little red chair, and her own windowwith its sill looking out upon her own yard, and Mary the cook in Mary'sown kitchen, and Georgie the little neighbor boy next door--along withthese things, she wanted Mamma.

  Not only because she was Mamma, all-wise, all-final, all-decreeing, butbecause, being Mamma and her edicts therefore supreme, she had bade herlittle daughter never to forget to say her prayers.

  Not that Emmy Lou _had_ forgotten to say them. Not she! It was that whenshe went to say them she had forgotten what she was to say. A terrifyingand unlooked-for contingency.

  Two days before, Papa had put his Emmy Lou into the arms of AuntCordelia at the railroad station of the city where she and Aunt Katieand Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie lived. They had come to the train toget her. As he did so, Mamma, for whose sake the trip south was beingmade in search of health, though Emmy Lou did not know this, smiled andtried 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 acockade, and Papa hastened to assume that the little person within thisexterior was martial also.

  "Emmy Lou is a plucky soul and will not willingly try you, Cordelia," hetold his sister-in-law.

  "Emmy Lou is a faithful soul and has _promised_ not to try you," saidMamma.

  "Kiss Mamma 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, andwheeling about and whipping out his handkerchief he blew his noseviolently.

  "Brother!" said Aunt Katie reproachfully. Aunt Katie was younger thanMamma and almost as pretty.

  "Brother Charlie!" said Aunt Louise who was the youngest of them all,even more reproachfully.

  "Shall I send her to Sunday school at our church, or at your church?"said Aunt Cordelia, plump and comfortable, and next to Uncle Charlie inthe family succession. For Papa's church was different, though Emmy Loudid not know this either--and when Mamma had elected to go with himthere had been feeling.

  "So she finds God's blessing, Sister Cordelia, what does it matter?"said Mamma a little piteously. "And she'll say her prayer every nightand every morning to you?"

  On reaching home, Aunt Cordelia spoke decidedly, "Precious baby! We'llgive her her supper and put her right into her little bed. She's wornout with the strangeness of it all."

  Aunt Cordelia was right. Emmy Lou was worn out and more, she wasbewildered and terrified with the strangeness of it all. But though herflaxen head, shorn now of its brave three-cornered hat, fell forwardwell-nigh into her supper before more than a beginning was made, andthough when carried upstairs by Uncle Charlie she yielded passively toAunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie undressing her, too oblivious, as theydeemed her, to be cognizant of where she was, they reckoned withoutknowing 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, precious baby," said Aunt Cordeliaand sat down. Aunt Katie who had been picking up little garments, meltedinto the shadows beyond the play and the flicker of the fire in thegrate, and Emmy Lou, steadied by the hand of Aunt Cordelia, went downupon her knees.

  For there are rules. Just as inevitably as there are rites. And sincelife is hedged about with rites, as varying in their nature as in theirpurpose, and each according to its purpose at once inviolate andinvincible, it is for an Emmy Lou to concern herself with rememberingtheir rules.

  As when she goes out on the sidewalk to play "I-spy" with Georgie, themasterful little boy from next door, and his friends. Whereupon andunvaryingly follows the rite. The rule being that all stand in a row,and while the moving finger points along the line, words cabalistic andpotent in their spell cryptically and irrevocably search out the quakingheart of the one who is "It."

  So in the kitchen. The rule being that Mary, who is young and pretty andlearning to cook under Mamma's tutelage, shall chant earnestly over thecrock as she mixes, words which again are talismanic and potent in theirspell, as "one of butter, two of sugar, three of flour, four eggs," orMary's cake infallibly will fall in the oven, stable affair as the ovengrating seems to be.

  And again at meals, rite of a higher class, solemn and mysterious. WhenEmmy Lou must bow her head and shut her eyes--what would happen if shebasely peeked she hasn't an idea--after which, Papa's "blessing" as itis called, having been enunciated according to rule, she may now reachout 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 Somethingknown as God is to be propitiated, and one protected from the fearful ifdimly sensed terrors of the dark when one comes awake in the night.

  Emmy Lou's Mamma, hitherto the never-failing refuge from all thatthreatened, haven of encircling sheltering arms and brooding tendereyes, provided this protection for her Emmy Lou before she went awayand left her. And more. She gave Emmy Lou to understand that somewhere,if one grasped it aright, was a person tenderly in league with Mamma inloving Emmy Lou, and in desiring to comfort her and protect her. Aperson named Jesus. He was to be reached through prayer too, and, likeGod in this also, through Sunday school, this being a place around thecorner where one went with Georgie, the little boy from next door.

  These things being made clear, no wonder that Mamma bade her Emmy Lounot to fail to go to Sunday school, and never to forget to say herprayers!

  And no wonder that Emmy Lou quite earnestly knew the rules for herprayers. That it hurt her knees to get down upon them had nothing to dowith the case. The point with which one has to do is that she does getdown on them. And being there, as now, steadied to that position by thehand of Aunt Cordelia, she shuts her eyes, as taught by Mamma, thoughwith no idea as to why, and folds her hands, as taught by Mamma, with nounderstanding as to why, and lowers her head, as taught by Mamma, onAunt Cordelia's knee. And the rules being now all complied with, sheprays.

  But Emmy Lou did not pray.

  "Yes?" from Aunt Cordelia.

  But still Emmy Lou failed to pray. Instead her head lifted, and hereyes, opening, showed themselves to be dilated by apprehension. "Mammastarts it when it won't come," she faltered.

  Aunt Cordelia endeavored to start it. "Now I lay me ..." she said witheasy conviction.

  Emmy Lou, baby person, never had heard of it. Terror crept into the eyeslifted to Aunt Cordelia, as well as apprehension.

  "Our Father . . ." said Aunt Katie, coming forward from the shadows. EmmyLou'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 fora moment it appeared as if she thought she had. A tear rolled down.

  "Go to bed and it will come to you tomorrow," 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 whenthey would lift her up.

  Aunt Cordelia was worn out, herself. One does not say good-bye to aloved sister, and assume the care of a chubby, clinging baby such asthis one, without tax. "Whatever is to be done about it?" she said toAunt Katie despairingly. Then to Emmy Lou, "Isn't there anything youknow 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 know Georgia's count out?" said Emmy Lou. "Eeny, mee
ny, miny, mo?Will 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 Mary's cake count," said Emmy Lou. "'One of butter, two ofsugar, 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. "'We thank Thee, Lord, forthis provision of Thy bounty. . . ?'"

  "The very thing," said Uncle Charlie heartily. "Set her up on her kneesagain, Cordelia, and let her say it."

  And Papa's blessing had served now, night and morning, since, though itwas evident to those about her that Emmy Lou was both dubious anduneasy.

  The processes of the mind of an Emmy Lou, however, if slow, are sound,if we know their premises. There was yet another way by which God couldbe propitiated, and Jesus, who desired to love her and protect her,reached. On the morning of her third day with her aunties, she inquiredabout this.

  "When is Sunday school?"

  They told her. "Today is Saturday. Sunday school is tomorrow."

  She took this in. "Will I go to Sunday school?"

  "Certainly you will go."

  She took this in also. So far it was reassuring, and she moved to thenext point, though nobody connected the two inquiries. "There's a littleboy 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? Andthe substitute little white bed for her little bed? And the substitutelittle armchair wherein she was sitting at the moment, for her chair?

  To be sure the details varied. Hitherto the cook in the kitchen had beenMary, pink-cheeked and pretty. Whereas now the cook in the kitchen notonly is round and rolling and colored and named Aunt M'randy, but thereis a house-boy in the kitchen, too, whose name is Bob. The stabilizingfact remains, however, 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 schoolwith the little boy next door_, holding tight to his hand, while hisMamma at his door, and your Mamma at your door, watch you down thestreet. That he lords it over you, edicting each thing you shall orshall not do along the way, is according to immutable ruling also, asGeorgie 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 helets you know, and glories in his easy knowledge of the same. Andwhereas you, on your very first Sunday, get there to learn that Cainkilled Mabel, and are visibly terrified at the fate of Mabel, accordingto Georgie it is a mild event and nothing to what Sunday school has tooffer at its best.

  He knows the comportment of the place, too, and at the proper momentdrags Emmy Lou to her knees with her face crushed to the wooden benchbeside his own. And later he upbraids her that she fails in the fervorwith which he and everybody else, including the lady who told Emmy Loushe was glad to see her, pour forth a hum of words. When he finds shedoes not know these words his scorn is blighting. Though when she askshim to teach them to her, it develops that he, the mighty one, onlyknows a word here and there to come in loud on himself.

  For a moment, the other night, Emmy Lou had fancied Aunt Katie wassaying these words used at Sunday school, but how could 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, heraunties having gone about their Saturday morning affairs, and seekingher little sacque with its scalloped edge, which she pulled on, and herlittle round hat which she carried by its elastic, went forth into thewarm comfort of the Indian Summer morning to find him.

  He was at his gate! The rule again! Georgie was ever to be found even soat 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 alongpast her house and her yard, to the little boy at the gate of his houseand 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. Whenshe reached him and put out her hand to his, he took it and led herback to his gate with him. His name, she remembered, was Izzy.

  "Sunday school is tomorrow?" she said, looking up at Izzy.

  "Sunday school?" said Izzy.

  "Where Cain killed Mabel?"

  Izzy's dark eyes lit. He was a gentle and kindly little boy. Emmy Loufelt she would love Izzy. "We call it 'Temple.' But it is today. MyMamma told me to walk ahead and she would catch up with me."

  "Today?"

  Surely. With such visible proofs of it upon Izzy. Do little boys wearvelvet suits with spotless collar and flamboyant tie but for occasionssuch as Sunday school? Aunties and even Mammas know less about Sundayschool than the Georgies and Izzys, who are authorities since they arethe ones who go. Emmy Lou put on her little hat even to the elastic.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 togreat doors. They waited at their foot, Izzy and Emmy Lou, a dark-eyedlittle boy in a velvet suit, and a blue-eyed little girl in a ginghamdress and scalloped sacque, while others went up and in, old men, youngmen, old women, young women, little boys, little girls. Waited untilIzzy's Mamma arrived and found him.

  She was dark-eyed and lovely too. She listened while he explained. Did ashadow, as of patient sadness, cross her face?

  "The little girl does not understand, Israel, little son," she said."Hold her hand carefully, and take her back to her own gate. I will waitfor 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. Mine and my mother's and myfather's."

  Little girls left at their own gates, little girls who have come to liveat their aunties' home, go around by the side way to the kitchen door.Emmy Lou had learned that already. If anyone had missed her there was noevidence of it. Aunt M'randy, just emerging from this kitchen door, acoal-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 her round hat hadn't an idea,but seeing that she was expected to accept, took Aunt M'randy'sunoccupied hand and went.

  And so it was that she found Sister. For Aunt M'randy was going down thelength 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 thealley-gate to empty the ashes. And beyond this alley gate, outside whichstood the barrel they were seeking, in the alley itself, with thecottage shanties of the alley world for background, stood Sister! Oneknew she was Sister because Aunt M'randy called her so.

  Sister was small and brown and solid. Small enough to be _littler_ thanEmmy Lou. Her face was serious and her eyes in their setting of generouswhite followed one wonderingly.

  _Littler_ than Emmy Lou! The rule in life was extending itself. Hithertoshe, Emmy Lou, had been that littler one, and hers the eyes to followwonderingly, and the effect of meeting one thus littler than oneself isto experience strange joys, palpably and patently peculiar to being thelarger.

  Emmy Lou dropped the hand of Aunt M'randy and went out into the alleyand straight to Sister.

  Nor did Sister seem surpri
sed at this, but when Emmy Lou reached her andpaused, sidled closer, and her little brown hand crept into Emmy Lou'swhite one and clung there. Whereupon the white one, finding itself thebigger, closed on the brown one and Emmy Lou led Sister in through thealley gate, past Aunt M'randy, and up through the yard with its tree andits bush and its whilom flower border.

  More! There was a depression in the pavement leading up to the house, adepression all of the depth of about three of Emmy Lou's fingers.Whereat she stopped, and putting her arms about Sister, solid for allshe 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 newswas for Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie, though certainly Emmy Lou had aright 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 sendEmmy Lou around to her class. That our house-boy would bring her."

  Aunt Cordelia had her ready the next morning aforetime, red coat withtriple capes, martial hat and all, ready indeed before Bob, thehouse-boy, had finished his breakfast.

  The day was warm and sleepily sunny and smiling.

  "You may go outside and wait for Bob at the gate if you like," AuntCordelia told Emmy Lou.

  But Emmy Lou had no idea of waiting at any gate. Indecision with her waslargely a matter of not knowing what she was expected to do. She knew inthis case. By the time Bob was ready and out looking for her, she hadbeen down through the alley gate and back, bringing by the hand thatperson _littler_ than herself, Sister. Had led her through the frontgate and along to the next gate where Izzy was standing.

  Bob afterward explained his part vociferously if lamely. But as AuntM'randy said, that was Bob.

  "There they wuz, the three uv 'em, strung erlong by the han's an'waitin' foh me. Seem lak there warn't no call foh me to say nothin' tellwe got there."

  "And then?" from Aunt Cordelia, while Aunt M'randy sniffed withskepticism.

  "When we come to the infant class door roun' on the side street like youtol' me, there wuz a colored boy I know, drivin' a kerridge, an' hecalled me. An' I tol' the chil'ren to wait while I spoke to him. When Iturned roun' ag'in I saw 'em goin' in th'ough the doah. An' I comehome."

  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 therebecause he was the larger, and Sister, laconic little Sister, solid andbrown, was due to be there because, in the former likeness of Emmy Lou,she was the _littler_.

  One's place at Sunday school in company with Georgie, has been the frontbench. The rule holds good, and Emmy Lou led the way to the front benchnow, where she and Izzy lifted Sister to a place, then took their ownplaces either side of her. If the rest of the infant class alreadyassembled were absorbed in these movements, Emmy Lou did not notice it,in that she was absorbed in them herself.

  Miss Mollie Wright came in next, breezy and brisk and a minute late, andin consequence full of zeal and business.

  Hitherto the rule has never varied. As Emmy Lou knew Sunday school, thelady teacher now says, "Good morning, children." And these say, "Goodmorning," in return.

  But the rule varied now. Miss Mollie Wright coming around to the frontbefore the assembled class on its several benches, stopped, looked, thenfull of sureness and business came to Izzy and Emmy Lou and Sister, andtook Izzy by the hand.

  "I doubt if your mother and father would like it, Izzy," she said. "Ithink you had better run home again. And this little girl next to youdoesn't belong here either." Miss Mollie Wright was lifting Sisterdown. "I think she had better run along as you go." And in the verynicest way she started Izzy and Sister toward the door. "What?" turningback to the third little figure in a martial coat with triple capes anda martial hat. "Why, are you going, too?"

  Aunt Cordelia explained to Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlieafterward. "M'randy saw them when they reached home and passed herkitchen window going back through the yard, and came and told me, andshe 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 Sundayclothes, watching M'lissy, on her doorstep, comb Letty's hair."

  True! Around M'lissy, the mother of Sister, 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 Sister, firm planted on thelowest step, between M'lissy's knees.

  And bliss unspeakable as Izzy and Sister and Emmy Lou in a circle on theground around the doorstep watched. For Letty's head, by means of thecomb in M'lissy's hand, was being criss-crossed by partings intosections, bi-sections, and quarter-sections, and such hair as wasintegral to each wrapped with string in semblance of a plait, plaitafter plait succeeding one another over Letty's head. The while M'lissysang in a mounting, joyful chant, interrupted by Letty's outcry now andthen beneath the vigor of the ministration.

  "Ow-w, Mammy!"

  The chant would hold itself momentarily for a reply.

  "Shet up," M'lissy would say.

  Which would be too much even for laconic Sister who from her place onthe ground between Izzy and Emmy Lou would defend Letty. "When Mammywrops yer h'ar, she wrops hard."

  After which the combing and the wrapping and the chanting would go onagain, 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 tocomfort her and protect her! Found not where she had looked for Him atall but here with M'lissy in the alley!

  That night, according to rule, as Emmy Lou's head came through theopening of the gown slipped over it, she said:

  "Shall I say it now? Papa's blessing?"

  And Aunt Cordelia, according to rule, sitting down and steadying EmmyLou to her knees, waited.

  What should have brought it back, Emmy Lou's own little prayer as taughther by Mamma? She only knew that it came of itself, and that while herheart heaved and her breath came hard, she stopped in the midst ofPapa's blessing, "We thank Thee, Lord, for this provision of Thybounty,----" sobbed, caught herself, opened her eyes and looked mutelyat 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."