Dorothy tasted one of them. It was bland and chewy.
The pink bland cakes were followed by sweet spicy ones that were also to no one's taste. And Mrs. Sue, trying hard, adopting all the right postures, sent signals of sociability that were only partially received. They were swamped by the heavy-handed and insincere gestures that came in reply.
'These are very unusual. Very unusual. Nice,' said Aunty Em, loudly, holding up the spice cake.
Mrs. Sue kept smiling, looking nowhere. She leaned forward like a river reed to fill more cups with tea.
'Shouldn't she let it steep more?' wondered one of the ladies without looking at the others.
'Chinese tea is famous for its delicacy,' Aunty Em informed them.
'I wish the incense was,' said Mrs. Parker.
It couldn't go on much longer. Tea and cakes can only do so much without conversation. More smiles and nodding, and Mrs. Sue knew she had failed. Her eyes were veiled as she tried to look pleased and honored when the ladies left. Dorothy went to help her with the coats.
Dorothy wanted to say something. But how could you say something to someone who had not learned to talk?
She had an idea. She talked like a baby would talk. She made sounds without the words that she found she lacked. Dorothy whispered, sadly, 'Da tori nah sang ga la ta no rah tea so la tee ree.' Without having to find words, Dorothy said that she was sorry, sorry that Mrs. Sue was alone in a foreign country, and that her cakes had not been liked, and that no one else was coming, and that her husband would probably be cross.
Mrs. Sue knew that the little girl was really trying to say something, something kind. And she could see what she was not supposed to notice, that the child was poorly dressed. Mrs. Sue had a happy idea. It was a season of gift giving. She turned and gave the child a folded-paper doll, dressed in crepe paper, with a folded face and a painted smile.
'Thank you,' said Dorothy.
They filed back out through the hot, cushioned room, through the curtain, down the cooler, wooden corridor, back into the store. Mr. Sue was smiling, thanking them for the call. Do tell your wife how charmed we were, said the ladies, what a lovely room, what a lovely blue… um… ensemble she wore, a delightful tea, such a departure from the usual. Why, Dorothy wondered, do adults always lie?
Back out into the cold.
'Oh,' said one of the ladies, a safe distance away. 'Back out into God's own air!'
'Poor little thing. Fancy not speaking a word of English!'
'She was the soul of courtesy,' insisted Aunty Em. 'I cannot imagine how her behavior could be in any way improved.'
'Perhaps by using less incense so a human body could breathe!' exclaimed the Reverend Parker's wife.
'That was like your nosegay,' said Dorothy. 'She was frightened that you'd smell.'
'Dorothy!' exclaimed Aunty Em. 'Apologize to Mrs. Parker.' But she sounded less angry than usual.
When they were back in the wagon, Aunty Em laughed. 'Dorothy, your mouth!' she said, shaking her head. 'The things you come out with! Mind, your mother was the same.'
Dorothy could see that she had done something right, but did not understand what it was. Aunty Em was a mystery, to be watched, to be solved.
A few days later, Aunty Em learned that her poem was not to be read at the Church anniversary. Her own suggestion had been taken up. Mrs. Blood in Illinois had been written to, and the old woman had responded with a detailed reminiscence of life in Manhattan's early days. It would be read in full to the congregation, as would Mrs. Parker's poem. Aunty Em had a letter from Miss Mudge, thanking her for all her efforts.
That night Dorothy heard her pacing around and around the little room in silence.
The next morning, Toto slipped his rope and disappeared, into the snow.
Manhattan, Kansas-Spring 1876
Suddenly it was spring in Kansas. There were wildflowers all along the roads and in the thorny hedges. Dorothy was relieved. It was as if some part of life had smiled on her at last.
Today was Sunday, no school, and it was sunny, a strange sort of sunlight that glowed in haze near to the ground. It was comfortable riding in the wagon. Dorothy still had to wear her coat, but the lap robes weren't necessary, and her feet and toes were no longer an agony. It was as if the whole of Kansas had sighed in relief.
Aunty Em was in a strange mood too. In the morning, as she had hitched the mule to the cart, there was a kind of secret smile on her face, and she moved with more of a bounce in her step.
'C'mon, Dorothy, it's just you and me today. Your Uncle Henry don't come, because he don't have the Spirit,' said Aunty Em, feeling chummy. 'So it's just us two, Dorothy. We're going to go and have our souls raised up like summer flowers. I tell you, when the Spirit moves, you don't mind anything, because God is with you, and nobody can take that away.'
They weren't going to church. That was very strange. Meeting was obviously going to be slightly like church, there could be no escape from something holy on a Sunday, but it was obviously something more delicious and exciting, a kind of spring church. Aunty Em clucked her tongue, and the cart jerked forward, and they moved out into the fields.
Dorothy caught her aunty's mood. 'We're going to Meeting! We're going to Meeting!' she exclaimed
