III
A FEW STRONG INSTINCTS AND A FEW PLAIN RULES
Every exigency in life save one, for an Emmy Lou at six, seemingly is provided for by rules or admonition, the one which sometimes is overlooked being lack of understanding.
"'Take heed that thou no murder do,'" was the new clause of the Commandments In Verse, she had recited at Sunday school only yesterday.
"'The way of the transgressor is hard,'" said Dr. Angell from his pulpit to her down in the pew between Uncle Charlie and Aunt Cordelia an hour later. Or she took it that he was saying it to her. For while one frequently fails to follow the words in this thing of admonition, there is no mistaking the manner. When she came into church with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Cordelia, in her white piqué coat and her leghorn hat, Dr. Angell had met her in the aisle and seemed glad to see her, even to patting her cheek, but once he was in his pulpit he shook an admonishing finger at her and thundered.
Nor did Emmy Lou, a big girl now for all she still was pink-cheeked and chubby, lack for admonitions at home from Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise above stairs, and Aunt M'randy in the kitchen below—a world of aunts, in this respect, it might have seemed, had Emmy Lou, faithful to those she deemed faithful to her, been one to think such things.
Admonitions vary. Aunt Cordelia and Aunt M'randy drew theirs from the heart, so to put it. "When you mind what I say, you are a good little girl. When you do not mind what I say, you are a bad little girl," said Aunt Cordelia.
"When I tell you to go on upstairs outer my way, I want you to go. When I tell you to take your fingers outen thet dough, I want you to take 'em out," said Aunt M'randy. Admonitions put in this way are entirely comprehensible. There is no getting away from understanding mandates such as these.
Aunt Katie and Aunt Louise drew their admonitions from a small, battered book given to them when they were little for their guidance and known as "Songs for the Little Ones at Home."