"Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night,"
and braced herself by saying, internally: "I ain't 'fraid o' tigers and I ain't 'fraid o' gran'ma"--this, too, with a fine sense of climax.
"What is it, Emmie? Stop crying. I can't have this noise."
"Nonsense! I have no pets. You are not to worry Emmeline. Never say that again. Understand?"
"Are you going to promise, or do you prefer to spend the day alone?"
That had been tried, and proved a great waste of time and opportunity.
"Very well; now go to church; Venie is waiting."
"Aha!" said the victorious Emmie when they were out of earshot. "Now you see what you get for teasing me."
And she crowed over her comrade with restored vivacity, till Val said, with suspicious geniality:
"Oh, well, I s'pose I was mistaken. I knew you were either her pet or else--"
Emmie fixed her beautiful soft eyes expectantly on her sister.
"Or else a creepin', crawlin' little woo--er--er--m."
Floods of tears, and Venus to the rescue.
The Four Years' War did not always rage round Emmie, although it was the innocent little sister who was the means of forcing upon Val the conviction that her grandmother was not, and never could be, her friend. It is true she cherished a dream at first of earning her gratitude and admiration by some splendid heroic deed that should cover her grandmother with shame at the memory of the way she had misunderstood and undervalued her descendant. The house would be on fire some day, and Val would "save all their lives"; or a robber would get in in the night, and by a series of thrilling adventures Val would entrap and lock him up in the closet under the stairs, where that silly old Jerusha said there was a ghost; or the ancient nag that sometimes came from the livery-stable to take her father and grandmother out for an airing--this steed would unexpectedly run away some fine day. Val saw herself dashing out of the bushes at the road-side, seizing the bit, and hanging on to it till she brought the frantic animal to a stand-still. Then her grandmother would say: "Dear, brave child, we owe you our lives," etc. "How I've misunderstood you!" etc. Val would be magnanimous, and forgive everything. She had a fixed intention of saying in reply: "Gran'ma, let the dead past bury its dead." Her grandmother would feel that. But until that day came, how was she to endure all this injustice and oppression? Emmie was her grandmother's--well, she took Emmie's word about everything, and Emmie counted on that. She didn't play fair, and she was an awful cry-baby; couldn't climb trees, or even run hard without falling down and hurting herself and saying it was Val's fault. Then for the rest of the day her grandmother would treat Val like an outcast, and dock her of Jerry's society. How sickening it was to be told Emmie was the littlest, and delicate! Val herself had at one time been "only six," but she hadn't been a sniveller; she had always played fair and never cried. Ask anybody. They'd all say Val Gano _never_ cried. Whereupon she would steal away to the wood-shed, or climb up high in the catalpa-tree, remind herself she had no mother, shed a private tear or two, and tell herself a story.