Americans All | Page 7

Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy was gone.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl, and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
"Get any valentines?"
"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."
"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been reading the long verses inside to me."
"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.
"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.
The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and the aunties, sitting around, reading.
"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.
They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to come back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been forgotten. Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing because of the mother who would never come back, and looked troubled.
But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee. In the valentine's center were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.
"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.
They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked over Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be."
The aunties nodded.
"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my."
Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n, e--Valentine. Be my Valentine."
"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.
"Well!" said Aunt Katie.
"At last!" said Aunt Louise.
"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.

GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
In the South it is not unusual to give boys' names to girls, so it happens that George is the real name of the woman who wrote Emmy Lou. George Madden was born in Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She attended the public schools in Louisville, but on account of ill health did not graduate. She married Atwood R. Martin, and they made their home at Anchorage, a suburb of Louisville. Here in an old house surrounded by great catalpa trees, with cardinals nesting in their branches, she was recovering from an illness, and to pass the time began to write a short story. The title was "How They Missed the Exposition"; when it was sent away, and a check for seventy-five dollars came in payment, she was encouraged to go on. Her next work was the series of stories entitled Emmy Lou, Her Book and Heart. This at once took rank as one of the classics of school-room literature. It had a wide popularity in this country, and was translated into French and German. One of the pleasant tributes paid to the book was a review in a Pittsburgh newspaper which took the form of a letter to Emmy Lou. It ran in part as follows:
Dear Little Emmy Lou:
I have read your book, Emmy Lou, and am writing this letter to tell you how much I love you. In my world of books I know a great assembly of lovely ladies, Emmy Lou, crowned with beauty and garlanded with grace, that have inspired poets to song and the hearts of warriors to battle, but, Emmy Lou, I love you better than them all, because you are the dearest little girl I ever met.
I felt very sorry for you when the little boy in the Primer World, who could so glibly tell the teacher all about the mat and the bat and the black rat and the fat hen, hurt your chubby fist by snapping an india-rubber band. I do not think he atoned quite enough when he gave you that fine new long slate pencil, nor when he sent you your first valentine. No, he has not atoned quite enough, Emmy Lou, but now that you are Miss McLaurin, you will doubtless even the score by snapping the india-rubber band of your disdain at his heart. But only to show him how it stings, and then, of course, you'll make up for the hurt and be his valentine--won't you, Emmy Lou?...
And when, at twelve years, you find yourself dreaming, Emmy Lou, and watching the clouds through the schoolroom window, still I love you, Emmy Lou, for your conscience, which William told about in his essay. You remember, the two girls who met a cow.
"Look her right in the face and pretend we aren't afraid," said the biggest girl. But the littlest girl--that was you--had a