Monday morning found Emmy Lou at the school gate betimes. "I've got my pledge now," she told Hattie and Sadie eagerly, as together they arrived.
"Of course you have," from Hattie commendingly, "I knew you must have taken one. Say yours."
Emmy Lou said hers:
"I'll never use tobacco, no,
It is a filthy weed,
I'll never put it in my mouth——"
She stopped. As could be seen in the horrified faces of Hattie and Sadie, something was wrong.
"They taught you that at your Sunday school?" from Hattie.
"You, a little girl——?" from Sadie.
Whereupon the pilgrim, the pilgrim Emmy Lou, saw it all, saw that she had but endeavored to throw dust into eyes, beginning with her own.
"I didn't get my pledge at Sunday school, I got it from a little boy. I asked him and he taught it to me. We don't have pledges at my Sunday school."