She wished Cab would invite her to another party. Her old moody self tried to say that she had been a failure, but she knew better.
“He’s been up to the Wisconsin game. Besides, Cab Edwards changes around. I wish I could improve my dancing, though.” Just possibly he might have asked her sooner if she had danced better.
There was a dancing school in town but the classes were only for children. At first thought she felt foolish going for private lessons, but she laughed herself down.
“Pooh! It’s nobody’s business but my own. I’m studying everything else. I might as well study dancing, too.”
And she walked down Front Street to Mrs. Anderson’s Select Dancing Academy.
Mrs. Anderson was a large woman, with a hard, tired face. She was lame. How had a lame woman undertaken to teach dancing, Emily wondered? Probably the training in dancing had come first, and Mrs. Anderson had not been deterred from her chosen career, although it must be difficult and tiring to lead children as she was doing now through so endlessly many steps.
“Everybody’s doing it, doing it, doing it,
Everybody’s doing it…”
The pianist, whose red hair was pomped all around like a halo, thumped out the same tune over and over again.
Emily took her first lesson on the spot. Mrs. Anderson called for a waltz and, oddly enough, the red-haired pianist chose the very tune which had opened the Elks dance.
“To you, beautiful lady…”
Only now Emily didn’t dance with a partner. She went through the steps alone, over and over, while Mrs. Anderson, in front of her, demonstrated as she called, “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
It was fun to move about the polished floor with no qualms about her lack of skill.
“I’ll learn some of the new things, too…the Gaby Glide and the Turkey Trot,” Emily thought.
Thanksgiving was near now. Emily and Aunt Sophie were drawn together by their mutual eagerness.
“You and your grandfather are coming for Thanksgiving dinner,” Aunt Sophie reminded.
“Oh, of course!”
“But Annette gets in Wednesday night. Won’t you come to the train with us?”
“I certainly will.”
It was a cold night with wind racing down the station platform, but the parents and Emily waited with warming joy. At last came the whistle and the tolling bell, and the great light of the engine.
The home-coming students rushed to their waiting families, but all, even Don, paused to greet Emily.
“You look just like the Deep Valley High School,” he said with his wide smile, shaking her hand.
Annette threw her arms around her and kissed her. Emily smelled a new delicious perfume.
“Em! You old darling! I hope you’re coming home with us?”
“I’m coming tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner. Grandpa and I are.”
“I want you with me every minute. I want you to just follow me around. Hear?”
“She’s going to be too busy following me,” said Nell, hugging her.
“No! No! Me!” cried Gladys.
“I’ll follow you all everywhere,” said Emily happily.
It was like a breath of heaven.
For three days she really lived. She and her grandfather went to the Thanksgiving dinner. But even Minnie’s turkey was nothing compared to the joy of sitting in Annette’s room after dinner, hearing her tell about the university.
She showed Emily her Epsilon Iota pledge pin. “The girls are adorable! Just adorable!”
She told her all about the rushing parties and pledge day. When Gladys came in, Annette turned the talk away from sororities, for Gladys had not been asked to join one and it had been hard on her, Annette had confided to Emily. They talked about fraternity dances and college football games—which were very different from high school football games—held in great arenas. Jim Baxter was going out for football; he had made the second team.
They told her about the Oak Tree where everyone went for sundaes and coffee. “It’s the Heinz’s of the university,” Annette explained.
They described the crush in the post office when you went before chapel to look for notes, or blue slips, or invitations.
“Or corsages,” Gladys put in mischievously.
“Don really did put one there for me when I pledged,” Annette explained.
They talked about “fussing” and “dates” and “river banking.” That meant walking with a man along the path which followed the Mississippi. When indignant parents called them downstairs they went to the piano and sang a song about river banking:
“When we go strolling, river banking,
Wandering along,
Strolling through the dusky shadows
All the world’s a song.”
Don and Scid and Jim came in.
Don was very collegiate—more so than any of them, Emily thought. The padded shoulders of a new striped suit made him look even bigger than he was. And he kept his coat open to show the pledge pin on his vest. He was in a very good mood, flashing his shiny smile and laughing uproariously at all of Scid’s jokes. But he paid a minimum of attention to Emily.
Scid noticed that her hair was up. The girls had noticed it earlier, saying that they liked it that way. They said so again and Don turned and looked at her indifferently, but he didn’t speak.
She had thought she would tell him about the Browning Club, but that was impossible. It seemed impossible that they had ever been friends.
Gladys played “Minnesota, Hail to Thee” and “Ski-U-Mah.” They were all singing, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Emily was singing with them, but she felt uncomfortable. She did not have the sense of belonging she had felt at the Elks dance. Even though there was an extra boy she decided to leave, and when she suggested that she take her grandfather home, no one protested. Jim Baxter even looked relieved, she thought.
Uncle Chester drove them in the auto.
All day Saturday and Sunday she stayed with the girls, drinking in their words. She didn’t tell them, as she had intended to, about the party with Cab. It didn’t seem as important as it had. Maybe Gladys would call him a graybeard.
She didn’t mention her several projects either. She felt sensitive about the dancing lessons, and she knew that Miss Cobb and a Browning Club would only sound dull. But on Sunday night when the train carried them away, Emily was glad for her “program of self-improvement.” She wouldn’t, she resolved, let herself be downed another time.
“I’ve learned, at least, to muster my wits in my own defense,” she thought and telephoned Alice.
11
Crack the Whip
ON MONDAY EMILY STAYED at home, doing housework furiously, baking cookies and a cake. Her grandfather, sitting in the bay window, called out that the skating must be good.
“There’s quite a crowd on the pond.”
A little later he observed that he had seen Kalil go past…without Yusef. And when Emily came to sit beside him, after frosting her cake, he remarked thoughtfully, “I like to see Kalil playing with American boys for a change.”
“But do you suppose he has skates?” Emily went to the window. Through the bare trees she could see the fire at the edge of the pond and the graceful figures of skaters, but she could not recognize Kalil. She jumped up.
“I believe I’ll go out myself,” she said. She bundled into her short jacket and furs and caught up her skates.
It was growing late; the snow was a cold pale blue, and the crowd was thinning out. Only a handful of boys remained, shouting at the far end of the pond. Skating near them, she saw Kalil with a red muffler flying above his shabby coat. He didn’t have skates, but he was pleased, she saw, to be one of the group. He was laughing, and struggling to stand up on the ice. He waved at her excitedly.
She turned and skated slowly to the other end of the pond, looking beyond the yellow willows to her little white house, grimy-gray against the snow. The locust tree rose ghostlike above its forsa
ken bench. And the bare trees on her hillside blurred against the sky where the sun hung like a red Japanese lantern.
When she turned again, the boys were playing crack the whip. Hands locked, they were skating in Indian file. They gained speed, and the leader—a burly overgrown boy—stopped suddenly with a warning yell and pulled the line around. It broke, and the skaters went whirling over the ice. Good fun, no doubt, but pretty violent, Emily thought, skating peacefully with her hands in her muff.
The line formed again, and this time at the perilous end a red muffler flamed. But Kalil didn’t have skates—and he was much smaller than the others! She pushed forward.
Seeing her coming, the leader started skating. Kalil ran frantically behind the last skater, who held Kalil’s hand firmly. He lost his footing but his companion would not release him. The leader yelled, “Hold on!” and cracked the whip with savage vigor. Kalil went rolling and tumbling over the ice.
The boys skated away, whooping, “Dago! Dago!” Emily cried after them but they would not stop. At the fire they tore off their skates and went scrambling over the slough.
“Barbarians!” she exclaimed as she helped Kalil to his feet.
He was shouting a stream of unintelligible—something. What did the Syrians speak? Arabic? Emily wondered. He was trying to wave his arms, but whenever he waved the right one he yelped with pain and pulled it back against his breast.
A little English broke into his talk. Emily gathered that his tormentors were dogs and that God would punish them in a number of dramatic ways. Tears of rage were running down his cheeks.
“Never mind them!” she said, putting her arm around him. “How do you feel?”
“I’m killed, ma’am. I’m going to die, God save!” he sobbed.
“Oh, no, Kalil! It isn’t that bad.”
“My arm, she hurts terrible.” He was cradling his right forearm in his left hand.
“Come over to the house,” said Emily. She skated slowly while he hobbled beside her. Reaching land, she took her skates off quickly.
Grandpa Webster was waiting at the front door. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m killed, sir, God save! I’m going to die,” said Kalil.
“Light the lamp, Grandpa. It’s his arm.”
“What happened?”
“They were playing crack the whip and Kalil was at the end—without skates! Those horrible boys!”
Kalil’s fists brushed away the last of his tears. “It’s because I’m a foreigner, ma’am,” he explained. “It’s because I speak the English funny.”
“That’s no reason for them being so mean.” Emily took off his worn overcoat gently but he winced. She took off his jacket, rolled up his right sleeve and ran her fingers cautiously over the forearm.
“It’s swelling. But it’s just a simple sprain, I think. You look at it, Grandpa.”
He took the small arm in knowing fingers while Kalil waited with anxiously dilated eyes.
“Just a sprain,” Grandpa Webster agreed. “Make a cold compress, Emmy. Some cookies might help, too. Did you know, Kalil, that cookies were good for sprains?”
“Cookies? Sweets?”
“That’s it.” They sat down beside the stove and, while Emily applied cold compresses, Kalil munched cookies and her grandfather talked.
“I saw plenty of sprains in the Civil War.”
“The Civil War?”
“Abe Lincoln’s war.”
“Were you a soldier, sir?”
“Call me Grandpa Webster. Yep! I was a soldier. And you must be a good soldier now till this stops hurting. It won’t hurt long. It may turn black and blue but that just gives you something to show Yusef. Where was he today?”
“He has a sickness. He sneezes.”
“Too bad. Bring me a towel, Emmy.”
“What are you making, my grandpa?” Kalil asked curiously.
“A sling.”
“Did you make things like that when you were a soldier?”
“Yep! Made ’em by the dozen.” The shirt was rolled down, the jacket and shabby overcoat replaced, the sling hung about Kalil’s neck and his arm was placed carefully within it.
“I’ll walk home with him,” Emily said to her grandfather.
Kalil looked up quickly. “You’ll walk home with me, ma’am?”
“Why, yes! You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“Oh, no! I am full of thanks to you.”
“It’s a good idea,” Grandpa Webster said. “She can explain to your mother what happened. I’m ashamed of those boys.”
“It was because I speak the English funny,” Kalil said again in a confidential tone. He took up his cap. “Good-by, my grandpa. I am full of thanks to you. Peace to your age!”
“Peace to your age!” Kalil always pronounced his p’s like b’s, but “beace” could only mean “peace.” “Peace to your age!” What a beautiful wish! Emily thought.
They went out the kitchen door. It was not yet six o’clock, but darkness had fallen. The snow gleamed with ghostly pallor and a few early stars were caught in the nets of the trees.
Kalil took her to a path that followed the edge of the slough.
“Is this the path you use when you come to see us?” Emily asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Yusef and I come often by this path. Here’s where I got bitten by that big, big, great big—Ouch!” He stopped measuring off the snake and settled his right arm cautiously in the sling.
“Kalil!” said Emily, laughing. “How can you talk, now that your arm is hurt?”
“But, ma’am! I talk with my mouth!” He started to bring his right hand up in illustration, stopped with another “Ouch!” and joined in her laughter, his eyes sparkling upward.
The tiny lights of Little Syria were now pricking through the gloom.
“You’ve lived here a year?” Emily asked.
“Yes, ma’am! My father was here first. Then he sent for my mother and me and Layla, my sister.”
“How do you like it?”
“Oh, very much! America, she’s a dandy country.”
Emily had not visited Little Syria in several years, and night veiled it now, but she remembered it as a dirty dilapidated place. The humble little houses stood side by side, facing an eastern hill on which rose the ramshackle mansion of old Mr. Meecham. He had come from the east years ago and bought all the land in this valley. Then he had cut it into building lots and had built himself a fine house. When he had failed, because of the distance from the center of town, to sell lots to his fellow citizens, he had sold to the Syrian colony and had stayed on in his mansion, cutting himself off angrily from the rest of Deep Valley. He still had money. His team of white horses was the finest in the county and it was driven by a coachman, too.
Kalil turned in near the end of the row. As they mounted the narrow porch the door flew open and a small dark face poked out—a little girl’s face, although she was wearing earrings. Long black braids with red rags woven into them swung on either side.
At sight of Kalil she let out a welcoming cry, but when she saw Emily she darted away. Her place in the doorway was taken by a tall man with a huge flowing mustache. Behind him peeped a small woman in a full-skirted, faded, purple dress. She also wore earrings.
They were all talking at once, with vehement gestures, in whatever language it was that Syrians spoke. Lay la wore glass bracelets which jangled as though they, too, were eager to have their say. The father, presently, broke off into English.
“Welcome, Miss! Come into my house. My house is honored…” Emily made out the stately words in spite of the stumbling pronunciation.
She found herself inside, and seated. The small parlor was lighted by a kerosene lamp, hung from the ceiling. A cast-iron stove in one corner quivered with heat. There were several cheap wooden chairs, a low table; and a low bench ran around all four walls. The room was carpeted cheerfully in red.
Kalil continued talking in the foreign tongue, gesticulating madly with his good left arm. The
little sister took Emily’s muff, laid it carefully on a chair. She looked at her with Kalil’s round liquid eyes, and when she met Emily’s gaze big dimples popped out. The little mother tripped out to the kitchen and Layla reluctantly followed.
The mustached father continued to overwhelm Emily with his welcome.
“What a blessed day! You have come to my house! It is yours. You may burn it.”
“Burn it! I can’t be understanding properly,” Emily thought.
“Peace to your feet for bringing my son home!” he continued. He examined Kalil’s sling. “Peace to your hands for making this…”
“It’s a sling, my father,” Kalil interrupted proudly.
“Peace to your hands for making this sling…”
“No, my father! Her honored grandfather made it.”
“Peace to his age!” the big man said with dignity.
There it was again! That beautiful phrase!
Emily felt ashamed to have their small services so extravagantly praised.
“Why, we didn’t do anything! I came home with Kalil because I wanted to explain about his arm. My grandfather examined it, and it isn’t broken. It will be all right soon.”
The mother returned bearing a dish of dried figs and one of raisins. The little sister carried a saucer full of nuts. She was trying not to smile but she wasn’t succeeding. Her dimples, Emily thought, were big enough to poke your finger in.
Everything was deposited on the table, which was now drawn close to Emily’s chair. The mother went to the kitchen again and Layla trailed after, her face turned to look at Emily until she was out of sight.
The father kept on talking grandiloquently, urging Emily to eat the figs and the raisins and the nuts, and shortly the mother came back with a small, long-handled, copper pot. Layla, close on her heels, brought a tiny cup which her mother filled with strange-looking coffee, very black with froth on top.
“You mustn’t be so good to me! I’ve done nothing at all!” Emily protested, but her words went unheeded. They all looked on radiantly while she nibbled and sipped.