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The trouble was about the trial-paper. One could have only four pieces. And the copy could go in the book only after the writing on the trial paper met with the approval of Miss Lizzie. And "kept in" meant staying after school, in hunger, disgrace, and the silence of a great, deserted building, to write on trial-paper until the copy was good enough to be put in.
There was pudding for dinner. But wrong or not, Emmy Lou knew that it was so, she knew she did not like Miss Lizzie. One morning Miss Lizzie forgot the package of trial-paper. The supply was out. She called Rosalie. Then she called Emmy Lou. She told them where her house was, then told them to go there, ring the bell, ask for the paper, and return.
It was the servant Miss Lizzie had said would come to the door. She came from the front. She had been away somewhere. She looked cross. She told them to go around to the front door. As they went the lady tapped. Rosalie looked back. Rosalie said the lady had pulled the flower from her hair and was tearing it to pieces. The old woman brought the trial-paper.
She raised a timid and deep-dyed hand, and made known her need. "Please, I have no trial-paper." Miss Lizzie's lips unclosed. Had she waited for this? "Then," said Miss Lizzie, "you will stay after school." Emmy Lou's heart burned, the colour slowly left her cheeks. It was something besides Emmy Lou that looked straight out of Emmy Lou's eyes at Miss Lizzie. It was Judgment.
Sponges, slate-rags, and neighbourly solicitude did what they could. But the trial-paper was steeped indelibly past redemption. Still not a word from Miss Lizzie. Only a cold and prolonged survey of the scene, only an entire suspension of action in the Fourth Reader room while Miss Lizzie waited. At last Emmy Lou was ready to resume work.
That one's apron, beautiful with much fine ruffling, should be ruined, was a small matter when one's trial-paper had been straight in the path of the flood. Neither was Emmy Lou's condition of digital helplessness to be thought of, although it did seem as if all great Neptune's ocean and more might be needed to make those little fingers white again.
Miss Lizzie was not fair. Emmy Lou did not reach home until dinner was long over. She had first to cover four slips of trial-paper and half a page in her book with upward strokes fine and hair-like, and downward strokes black and heavy. Emmy Lou ate her dinner alone. At supper she spoke. Emmy Lou generally spoke conclusions and, unless pressed, did not enter into the processes of her reasoning.
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