X
SO TRUTH BE IN THE FIELD
A year later Sarah, the sister of Albert Eddie Dawkins, saw him through the six weeks of the confirmation class, up the aisle of St. Simeon's and confirmed. The next day she started to England to visit her mother's people who had prospered.
"In a way I can feel he is safe now," she said to Aunt Louise at Sunday school on the day of his confirmation. "I wasn't easy about him before, if he is my brother. If he'll only go ahead now, he'll do."
Aunt Cordelia saw Emmy Lou through the same class of preparation, up the aisle and confirmed, and then came home and had a hearty cry. She who always claimed she was too busy seeing to meals, the house, and those within it, to give way!
"I am sure she is where her mother would have her," she said to Aunt Louise through her tears. "And her father would not hear to the alternative when I offered to discuss it. If only I can feel that in time she will be what her mother would have her!"
This seemed to put the odium on Emmy Lou in the event of failure. She would be thirteen years old in another month, her cheek-line was changing from round to oval, she was preparing for the high school, and her waist, according to Miss Anna Williams, the seamstress who made her confirmation dress, is coming round to be a waist.
She looked in distress at Aunt Cordelia who was drying her eyes in vain since the tears were continuing, and who seemed far from reassured that she will be what her mother would have her. There was nothing for it in the face of the implication but for Emmy Lou to throw herself into Aunt Cordelia's lap and cry too. After which the atmosphere cleared, the normal was resumed, and everybody felt better.
Sarah, who spoke with more flattering certainty about the future of Albert Eddie, wore her hair coiled on her head now, and her skirts were long. Capable, dependable, and to the point as ever, she was a young lady.
When Aunt Cordelia, accompanied by Emmy Lou, went to do her marketing the Saturday before Sarah left for England, her mother called her down to say good-bye.
"It's a long journey for you at eighteen, Sarah," said Aunt Cordelia, "and we will be glad when we hear you have reached its end safely."
"I can trust Sarah; I always could," said her mother. "If anything goes wrong she'll just have to remember what her grandmother, my mother, used to say to her when she was a wee 'un, and prone to fret when matters snarled and she found she couldn't right 'em, 'When you get to wit's end you'll always find God lives there.'"
Aunt Cordelia shook hands with Sarah, but Emily Louise, as many persons now called her, went up on her toes and kissed her.
"You must ask the prayers of the church for the preservation of all who travel by land and by water," Aunt Cordelia said to Mrs. Dawkins, "and we ourselves must remember her in our prayers. We will miss you, Sarah, in the singing of the hymns on special days and Wednesday evenings when we haven't a choir. I'm glad you went to the organist and had those lessons. A fresh young voice, sweet and strong and sure, like yours, can give great comfort and pleasure."
Hattie was a member of her church now, and Sadie of hers. Rosalie, Alice, and Amanthus were making ready for confirmation at St. Philip's which was high church. All had gone their ways, each to the portal of her own persuasion, as it were, and knocked and said, "I am informed that by this gate is the way thither."
And in answer the gate which is the way thither, according to the understanding of each, had opened and taken the suppliant in and closed behind her.
Which, then, is the gate? And which the way? Each and all so sure?
Time was, before the eyes of Emmy Lou were opened, when she supposed there was but one way. She even had pictured it, sweet and winding and always upward.
This was at a time when Sarah gathering Maud and Albert Eddie and Emmy Lou around her in the sitting-room above the grocery, about the hob, which is to say the grate, sang them hymns. It was from one of these hymns that Emmy Lou had pictured the way.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How fair the lily grows,
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
Of Sharon's dewy rose.
According to Sarah's hymns there were two classes of travelers on this sweet and goodly way.
Children of the Heavenly King,
As ye journey sweetly sing!
These Emmy Lou conceived of first. Later she saw others of whom Sarah sang, less buoyant, less tripping, but with upturned faces no less expectant.
And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing
Kind Shepherd turn their weary steps to Thee.
Emmy Lou listening to Sarah's hymns even saw these welcomed.
Angels of Jesus,
Angels of light,
Singing to welcome
The pilgrims of the night.
But that was time ago. There is no one and common road whose dust as it nears Heaven is gold and its pavement stars. Each knocks at the portal of his own persuasion and says, "I am informed that by this gate is the way thither."
But Albert Eddie, having entered his portal, was in doubt. "What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" he said to Emmy Lou, by "she" meaning Sarah, and by "in," the church of his adoption. His question began in a husky mutter of desperation and ended in a high treble of exasperation. Or was it merely that his voice was uncertain?
For to each age its phenomena, as inevitable as inexplicable. Albert Eddie's voice these days was undependable. Emmy Lou felt an uncharacteristic proneness to tears. Rosalie said it would be wisdom teeth next for everybody all round.
But if Albert Eddie seemed baffled and hazy as to what his duties were following confirmation, Aunt Louise left no doubt with Emmy Lou. The confirmation had been in May, and now a week later lawns were green and lilacs and snowballs in bloom.
"Now that you are a member of the church you can't begin too soon to take your place and do your part," Aunt Louise told her. "The lawn fête is Thursday night on the Goodwins' lawn. I am going to give you ten tickets to sell, and send ten by you to Albert Eddie since Sarah is not here to give them to him."
Emmy Lou took the tickets prepared to do the best she could. She had had experience with them before. It is only your friends who take them of you, as a necessity and a matter of course, a recognized and expected tax on friendship, as it were.
Associates who are not intimates decline. One named Lettie Grierson, in declining Emmy Lou's tickets now, voiced it all.
"Why should I buy tickets from you? You never bought any from me."
Hattie took one and said she'd go home and get the money and bring it round.
When she arrived that afternoon she brought a message from home with the money. "Mamma says to tell you our church is going to have a lecture on the Holy Land on the twenty-fifth."
Sadie was present, having come to pay for her ticket. "Our Sunday school is going to have a boat excursion up the river in June. The tickets will be twenty-five cents," she told Emmy Lou.
Rosalie arrived a bit later with the money for her ticket. "Alice and Amanthus can't go. They went to Lettie Grierson's church concert last week and I didn't. I can go if I may come and go with you from your house."
These three tickets thus disposed of, Emmy Lou's own, and the three taken by Uncle Charlie for the rest of the household made a fairly creditable showing.
Albert Eddie had less luck. Maud, his sister, so he explained, had been ahead of him, and wherever he might have gone, she had been.
"Joe Kiffin, our driver, took one, though he won't go, and the other one I've sold is for myself."
He seemed worried. "I tried," he said. "I promised Sarah I'd try every time it was put up to me."
It was arranged that not only Rosalie but Hattie and Sadie should come and go with Emmy Lou. When they arrived, on the day, about five o'clock, each had her ticket and her money.
A lawn fête for the church is no unmercenary matter. Your ticket only admits you to the lantern-hung grounds, which is enough for you to expect, and once within you have to buy your supper. That it is paid for and eaten largely by those whose homes have donated it has nothing to do with the matter, Aunt Cordelia having been notified that her contribution would be beaten biscuit, a freezer of ice-cream and chickens.
In this case there must be carfare also, the Goodwins and their lawn being half an hour's ride by street car from the center of things.
Aunt Cordelia came to the door with Emmy Lou to meet the three. "Go ahead," she said. "Louise is already there and will look after you. Eat your suppers when you prefer. Charlie and I will come later and bring you home."
The four found Albert Eddie at the corner waiting for the car. His hair was very, very smooth, and his Sunday suit was spick and span as if Sarah were home to see to it instead of well on her way to England, her rules and regulations evidently being of a nature to stay by one.
Perhaps it was an ordeal for Albert Eddie to have four girls descend on him, for he turned red and cleared his throat as though forced into declaring himself in maintaining his ground. Emmy Lou was his friend, and ignoring the others he addressed her.
"Maud went ahead with some friends of her own," he explained. "She said they wouldn't want me."
The obvious thing was to ask him to go with them. Had Emily Louise been speaking for herself alone, she would have done so, Albert Eddie being her friend and going to her Sunday school. On the other hand, his father kept a grocery at the corner just passed, and lived over it with his family. He wasn't the friend of her three companions and he didn't go to their Sunday school. Emily Louise understood many things which Emmy Lou wot not of. Would they want him?
Verging' on thirteen, one has heard this nature of thing and its distinctions discussed at home.
Aunt Louise objected to certain associates of Emily Louise not long ago. "It's why I am and always have been opposed to the public school for her. She picks up with every class and condition."
"And why I have opposed your opposition," returned Uncle Charlie, "since it is her best chance in life to know every class and condition."
"I'm sure I don't know why she should," Aunt Louise had said.
"An argument in itself in that you don't know," from Uncle Charlie.
Fortunately for Emily Louise in the present case of Albert Eddie, twelve verging on thirteen was yet democratic. "We'll all go together," said Hattie as a matter of course, and the others agreed.
Hattie, as ever, was marshal and spokesman. They boarded the car and sat down. "Fifty cents all around to begin with," she stated after fares were paid and the common wealth displayed. "Five cents put in for carfare. Forty-five cents left all around. Five cents to come home on, five cents to spend, and thirty-five cents for supper just makes it."
Church creeds and nomenclatures may vary but the laws of church fêtes and fairs are the same. As the five left the car and approached the Goodwins' home, Whitney and Logan were patrolling the sidewalk outside the gate and the lantern-hung yard from whence arose the hustle and chatter of the lawn fête.
Logan wore a baker's cap and carried a tray hung from his neck and piled with his wares, which a placard set there among proclaimed to be "Homemade Caramel Taffy, Five a Bag." Whitney was assisting Logan to dispose of his wares.
The two stopped the five. "We haven't a show against the girls on the inside to sell anything," they said. "Buy from us."
"Five cents for a bag all around and forty cents left, five cents to get home and thirty-five cents for supper," from Hattie the calculator, who liked to keep things clear.
Five bags were being exchanged for five cents all around when an elderly gentleman came along. Negotiations with the five being held up while he was pressed to buy candy, he brusquely replied that he had no change.
Neither had Logan or Whitney, business having been brisker than they admitted. But they did not let that deter them from cornering the gentleman into a showdown. Nor did a two-dollar bill, when produced, bother them.
Whitney had heard the financial status of the five just outlined by Hattie, and did some creditable calculating himself. Like Hattie he was good at figures.
"You have five forties between you," he said. "You take the bill and let us have the change. You'll get it fixed all right when you get your suppers."
The party of five was loath but saw no way out of it. Held up, as it were, they reluctantly gave over their forty cents around and pinned their gazes anxiously on the two-dollar bill in the hand of the elderly gentleman.
He seemed no better pleased than they, showing indeed a degree of temper unbecoming under the circumstances and using language somewhat heated for a church fair.
"What in heaven's name do I want with caramel taffy without a tooth in my head that's my own?"
He thrust the bill at Albert Eddie who took it hastily, and the five moved on.
"Who was it?" Sadie asked Emmy Lou and Albert Eddie, since this was their lawn fête. "He's coming in the gate behind us. Do you know?"
Unfortunately they did. It seemed to detract from that cordiality of welcome they would prefer to associate with their lawn fête.
"It's Mr. Goodwin," Emily Louise told them. "It's his house and yard. He must just be getting home."
One's friends are loyal. Hattie covered the silence. "His wife must have said they could have it here before she asked him. I've known it to happen so before."
"We'll go get our suppers," said Albert Eddie anxiously. "That way we'll each get our carfare back and it'll be off our minds."
They found Emmy Lou's Aunt Louise under a grape-arbor, dishing ice-cream from a freezer into saucers on the ground around it. A great many things are in order at a church fête that would not be tolerated at home.
"Go get your suppers," she said to the group. "I'm busy and will be; don't depend on me for anything."
The party of five took their places about a table a few moments after. Two of them were familiar figures in the Big Room at St. Simeon's Sunday school. The three young ladies who rushed up, tray in hand, to wait on them, were far, far older—eminent representatives of that superior caste of St. Simeon's Sunday school, the Bible Class.
It was a friendly rivalry that was on among the three, each waitress of the evening endeavoring in her earnings to outstrip and eclipse all other waitresses and so carry off the glory of the occasion. In the present instance the swiss apron and cap with the yellow ribbons won out, and the other two waitresses withdrew with laughter and recrimination of a vigorous nature, leaving the party of five overwhelmed by the notice from the surrounding tables and the publicity thus brought upon them.
The wearer of the swiss apron with the yellow ribbons was an arch and easy person, overwhelming her five charges further with offhand and jocose remarks indicative of condescension as she brought five suppers, substantial, lemonade, ice cream and cake, put them down, and, as it were, got through with it.
Even to the payment. And as Albert Eddie produced a two-dollar bill and she took it, she was easily, superlatively, meaningly arch as she said,
"We don't give change at church fairs to gentlemen."
Uncle Charlie, with Aunt Cordelia, taking the party home, paid everyone's carfare but Albert Eddie's. When the time came for leaving he could not be found.
"We lost him right after supper," Hattie explained.
"As soon as he heard us say you were coming to get us," from Emmy Lou.
"He didn't eat any supper, just pretended to," from Sadie. "He was trying not to cry."
"Sadie!" from Rosalie.
"We never, never should tell it if he was," from Hattie.
"Logan and Whitney said he left early," said Rosalie, "that he told them he would have to walk home."
Uncle Charlie deposited the members of the party at their several homes and then, being the editor of a newspaper, went back downtown.
Emmy Lou, oftener than she could enumerate, had waked in the past to hear him on his return in the late, or, to be exact, the early hours, stop at Aunt Cordelia's door with news that the world would hear the next morning.
She waked at his return tonight. He did more than tap at Aunt Cordelia's door, he went in. Hearing Aunt Cordelia cry out at his words, Emmy Lou went hurriedly pattering in from her adjoining room. As she entered, the door on the opposite side of the room opened and Aunt Louise came in, slipping on her bedroom wrapper.
The light was on and Aunt Cordelia was sitting up in bed with tears running unrestrainedly down her face.
Uncle Charlie, about to explain to Aunt Louise, looked at Emmy Lou and hesitated.
"No, go on," Aunt Cordelia told him. "She is a big girl and must hear these things from now on with the rest of us."
Uncle Charlie, reflective for a moment, seemed to conclude she was right and went on.
"The ship on which Sarah Dawkins crossed foundered on the rocks off the Irish coast in a heavy sea this morning and went to pieces against the cliffs in the sight of shore. The dispatches report only three persons saved, and tell of a cook who went about with pots of coffee, and of a girl named Sarah Dawkins who gathered some children about her and whose voice could be clearly heard by those on shore in the lulls of the storm singing hymns to them to the end."
Something happened to Uncle Charlie's voice. After finding it he went on. "I hurried right home. It's past twelve, Cordelia, but don't you think you had better dress and let me take you up to Mrs. Dawkins at once?"
Emmy Lou crept into Aunt Cordelia's bed as Uncle Charlie went out and Aunt Cordelia got up and began to dress hastily.
Strange tremors were seizing Emmy Lou, but she must not weep, must not detain or distract Aunt Cordelia. She was a big girl and must hear and bear these things now with the rest.
"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith or kin!" said Aunt Cordelia as she fastened her collar, still weeping. Then she came and kissed Emmy Lou.
"I may be gone some time. Stay where you are and I'll leave the light."
Did the tears come before or after Aunt Louise kissed and soothed her and then went back to bed? Emmy Lou rather thought they came after she was gone. And after the tumult of tears had spent themselves?
A picture arose in her mind, unbidden and unexpected, of Albert Eddie, hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home block after block from the lawn fête because church fairs do not give any change.
"What is it she wants me to do now I'm in?" he had asked following his confirmation.
And what was it that Sarah did want of Albert Eddie? Sarah who saw him confirmed and left next day? Sarah assembling the children on the ship and singing hymns to them to the end?
And suddenly Emmy Lou, twelve years old verging on thirteen, saw for the first time!
Sarah dependably mixing the Saturday baking in the crock, Sarah looking after her younger sister and brother as best she knew how, Sarah singing hymns to them sitting about the hob, which is the grate, was being made into that Sarah who could gather the children about her on the sinking ship and sing to them to the end. Not Sarah mixing the baking in the crock, but Sarah dependably mixing the baking in the crock. Herein came the light.
And all the while Emmy Lou had thought the digit on the slate in its day was the thing, and later the copybook, and only yesterday, the conjugation of the verb. Whereas Sarah now had shown her what nor home, nor school, nor Sunday school, nor confirmation class had made her see, that the faithfulness with which the digit is put on the slate, the script in the copybook, and the conjugation of the verb on the tablets of the mind, is the education and the thing!
This, then, is the gate? This the way that leads thither? The sweet and common road along which the children of the Heavenly King are journeying? Faithful little Sister from the alley of so long ago, gentle and loving Izzy of that same far-gone day, Hattie helping a schoolmate comrade over the hard places? This is the road whereon those older, laden souls are stealing? The road, if once gained by the pilgrim, whether he be Episcopalian, Bohemian, Presbyterian, or Afro-American, on which he will go straight onward. The path where, like bells at evening pealing, the voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea.
Sea? Prayers of the church were asked that Sarah be preserved from the perils of land and water! And Sarah was lost!
Lost? Was Sarah lost?
"We'll miss your voice, so sweet and strong and true, in the hymns," Aunt Cordelia had told Sarah.
Would her voice be missed? Her voice singing to the children to the end? It came with a flash of sudden comprehension to Emmy Lou, lying there in Aunt Cordelia's big bed waiting for her return, that Sarah's voice would not be missed but heard forever, singing hymns to the end to those little children of the King.
"What does she want me to do now I'm in?" asked Albert Eddie. Sarah had answered him. Make himself ready for whatsoever part should be his.
"The child, the poor, poor child, alone on that great ship without kith or kin!" Aunt Cordelia had said, weeping.
Was she thus alone? "When you get to wit's end you will always find God lives there," her grandmother had told her when she was a wee 'un. Had not Sarah given proof that when she got to wit's end God did live there?
Emmy Lou was weeping no longer. She lay still. A wonder and an awe suffused her. To the far horizon the landscape of life was irradiated. She was tranquil. The Silence had spoken at last.
Aunt Louise remarked to Aunt Cordelia a few days later, "Did I tell you that we made a hundred and fifty dollars at the lawn fête?"
"By fair means or foul?" asked Uncle Charlie, overhearing. "I must say, Louise, in the name of the church I stand for, I don't like your methods."
Perhaps Uncle Charlie and Emily Louise were seeing the same thing, Albert Eddie, hurt, mortified, and outraged, walking home in the night because St. Simeon's lawn fête didn't give change to gentlemen.
Aunt Cordelia spoke after Emmy Lou went up to bed. "She brought home her report of the final examinations from school today. She got through!"
"By the skin of her teeth as usual?" from Uncle Charlie.
"Just that. She works so hard to so little end, Charlie. I don't understand it. But at least she is always faithful."
Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so:
Some said, It might do good; others said, No.
—The Pilgrim's Progress.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Repeated chapter titles were removed. Text uses both "Heaven" and "heaven," "Sally" and "Sallie." Text uses the archaic spelling of "strait" for the more modern "straight."
The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.