And Emmy Lou?—who, as complement to this divination, loves Hattie?—Emmy Lou, what with over-anxious debate, what with caution, what with weight of evidence and its considering, is the anxious pilgrim of all time, lions in the path and bears in the bush.
Hurrying off to school the next morning to resume the grateful business of sharing a desk with this new friend, Emmy Lou found Hattie waiting for her at the gate even as she had said she would be, and life today, even as life yesterday from the initial moment of acquaintance with Hattie, became crowded at once, even jostled and elbowed with happening and information.
As the two took their places in the line forming at the sound of the school-bell, a little girl pushed in ahead of them where there was no place until she by crowding made one. But she did not care for that and showed it, her curls, which shone like Aunt Cordelia's copper hot-water jug, tossing themselves, and her skirts flaunting.
Hattie explained this. "She asked me to sit with her, that's why she's crowding us now. Her name is Sally Carter. But I choose, I don't take my friends." Her voice lowered and one gathered that following was an accusation, even an indictment. "She's the richest little girl in the class and wants you to know it. And she is an Episcopalian, too."
Emmy Lou felt anxious. Would Hattie laugh? "I don't know what an Episcopalian is."
But she seemed to regard the admission as commendable. "Sally's church gave an entertainment and called it for the orphans' fund, and she did the Highland Fling on the stage."
Emmy Lou had no idea what the Highland Fling was, either, but the line had reached the entrance doorway beyond which speech is forbidden. Except for this, must she have said she did not know? Or might she refrain from committing herself?
For there are different ways of meeting your lions. Emmy Lou knew two ways. Last year at school a little girl stood up in the aisle for no reason but a disposition to do so. Promptly and sharp came the rap of a pencil on the teacher's desk.
Lion in the path of the little girl! Lion of reprimand! But the little girl threw dust in the lion's eyes. "Oh, didn't the bell ring for everyone to stand?" she inquired. And sat down.
There is another way. Emmy Lou walked in on her friends the Dawkins one day, over the grocery at the corner, to find Albert Eddie in trouble. Possibly more than any person of Emmy Lou's acquaintance, he seemed an anxious pilgrim of all time too.