"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' tell we got there."
"And then?" from Aunt Cordelia, while 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 Emmy 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 Emmy 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 infant class already assembled 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, and in consequence 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. Miss Mollie Wright 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 better run home again. And this little girl next to you doesn't belong here either." Miss Mollie 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. "Why, are you going, too?"
Aunt Cordelia explained to Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise and Uncle Charlie afterward. "M'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."