alone. Hattie liked to lead. She
could lead Sadie. Generally she could lead Emmy Lou, not always.

But all the while slowly a conviction was taking hold in Emmy Lou's
mind. It was a conviction concerning Miss Lizzie.

Near Emmy Lou in the Fourth Reader room sat a little girl named
Lisa--Lisa Schmit. Once Emmy Lou had seen Lisa in a doorway--a store
doorway hung with festoons of linked sausage. Lisa had told Emmy Lou it
was her papa's grocery store.

One day the air of the Fourth Reader room seemed unpleasantly freighted.
As the stove grew hotter, the unpleasantness grew assertive.

Forty little girls were bending over their slates. It was problems. It
had been Digits, Integral Numbers, Tables, Rudiments, according to the
teacher, in one's upward course from the Primer, but now it was
Problems, though in its nature it was always the same, as complicated as
in its name it was varied.

The air was most unpleasant. It took the mind off the finding of the
Greatest Common Divisor.

The call-bell on Miss Lizzie's desk dinged. The suddenness and the
emphasis of the ding told on unexpected nerves, but it brought the
Fourth Reader class up erect.

[Illustration: "File by the platform in order, bringing your lunch."]

Miss Lizzie was about to speak. Emmy Lou watched Miss Lizzie's lips
open. Emmy Lou often found herself watching Miss Lizzie's lips open. It
took an actual, deliberate space of time. They opened, moistened
themselves, then shaped the word.

"Who in this room has lunch?" said Miss Lizzie, and her very tones
hurt. It was as though one were doing wrong in having lunch.

Many hands were raised. There were luncheons in nearly every desk.

"File by the platform in order, bringing your lunch," said Miss Lizzie.

[Illustration: "Lisa's head went down on her arm on the desk."]

Feeling apprehensively criminal--of what, however, she had no idea--Emmy
Lou went into line, lunch in hand. One's luncheon might be all that it
should, neatly pinned in a fringed napkin by Aunt Cordelia, but one felt
embarrassed carrying it up. Some were in newspaper. Emmy Lou's heart
ached for those.

Meanwhile Miss Lizzie bent and deliberately smelled of each package in
turn as the little girls filed by. Most of the faces of the little
girls were red.

Then came Lisa--Lisa Schmit. Her lunch was in paper--heavy brown paper.

Miss Lizzie smelled of Lisa's lunch and stopped the line.

"Open it," said Miss Lizzie.

Lisa rested it on