The boy was in the corner, his eyes fixed on the closed door, his whole
little body tense. His visible clothing consisted of a man's coat, cut
short at the sleeves and pinned across the breast. The child was so
small that this reached far below his knees, where it was supplemented
by ragged stockings and shoes. He was unkempt and dirty, even according
to the unexacting East Side's standard. But there was something about
the poise of his head and the slow, lithe movements of his body that
differentiated him from the ordinary street waif. There was no fear in
him--no pleading, no snivelling, nothing but a harsh, almost mature,
defiance.
"Come here!" said the Principal. At the sound of his voice the child
turned and looked at him, and the man found himself returning the cool
regard of a pair of violet-blue eyes. Blue eyes picked up in the heart
of that dusky neighborhood, where he had learned to expect all
children's eyes to be either black or brown!
"I wonder what he is, and where he comes from," he sighed, as he rang
the bell and summoned the teacher who generally acted as his
interpreter. "David Copperfield's poor old friend, Mr. Dick, would find
plenty of use for his famous prescription, 'wash him,' if he were in my
place."
Miss Rosen soon arrived and began her usual inquiries as to name, age,
residence. The little stranger heard her through, and then he uttered a
sharp three or four word sentence, clear cut, imperious; and Miss Rosen,
a sweet and portly lady of fifteen years' faithful teaching, flushed to
the edge of her hard black pompadour, and stared, incredulous, at the
ragged form before her.
"Well," said the Principal, as she made no effort at translation. "What
does he say?"
"I do not speak his language," she answered.
"And yet you understand him?"
"I understand him--yes----"
"Well," repeated the Principal, in no mind to allow one small boy to
upset his morning's routine, "well, if you understand him, tell me what
he said. What language was that he used?"
"Russian," she replied, "pure Russian, and what he said is the only
Russian phrase which many of the Jewish people ever hear. I have not
heard it since I escaped from Russia with my parents years and years
ago. I had hoped never to hear it again. I must refuse to translate it
to you."
When she had gone, all shaken, back to her class, the Principal shook a
remonstrating head at his captive, who was by this time examining the
book-case with a disparaging eye. Catching the man's glance, he made
some remark in his liquid speech, and thumped his chest.
"Perhaps so, my boy," Mr. Trevar agreed. "But I'm studying your case. No
English, horrid temper, young wild animal, in fact. It's hard on the
girl," he admitted to his own conscience; "but I guess it's a case for
Room 18," and rang the bell again and sent word to Room 18 to summon
Miss Bailey to his office.
"We've caught a tartar," he told her, "almost literally a Tartar. He
seems to have strong racial prejudices, and I shall have to assign him
to you until he learns a little English."
"But if he speaks no English at all," Miss Bailey remonstrated--for
children of this kind were her greatest trial, and she was already
laboring with three of them--"would he not be happier with one of the
teachers who could understand him?"
[Illustration: "I must refuse to translate it to you"]
"Ah! but they wouldn't," he replied; "that's just the point. Miss Rosen
tells me he's a Russian and not a Jew. He said something extremely rude
to her just now. No, you'll have to take him, at least for a few days,
until I can make some inquiries about him. We shall have to get the
Truant Officer to give us the child's name and address. Will you take
him with you now?"
Constance Bailey had a smile to which many a lonely frightened little
novice had yielded a shy and sweet response, but there was no answering
smile here. She stretched out a hand to take the boy's, but he eluded
her, reached the door, opened it, and stood at stiff attention until she
had preceded him into the hall.
"Well, I'll be blamed!" reflected the Principal. "Manners, and princely
ones at that!"
On the way to Room 18, Miss Bailey's newest responsibility walked beside
her with a free and upright carriage strangely at variance with the
shoes he walked in. Once or twice she spoke to him, and his answer was
an uncomprehending but courteous inclination of the little head. Once he
spoke to her. It was when they passed the platform in the Assembly Room.
He pointed to the piano and said something eagerly, authoritatively, in
that language whose like Miss Bailey had never heard. She nodded and
smiled at him, and they fared on together.
Again, at the door of Room 18, he punctiliously allowed her to precede
him. But as he entered after her and met the full regard of Room 18's
dark eyes, he stopped and returned the glances bent upon him with a
cool, insulting indifference.
"This is a new little boy," announced Miss Bailey, "to whom I want you
all to be very kind. He doesn't speak much English, but we shall teach
him that. Morris, he will sit near you."
Morris Mowgelewsky, all timid friendliness, approached the stranger.
Here surely was a queer new little boy in a "from man's" coat, and an
exceeding dirty face; yet if Miss Bailey hailed him as a new little
friend, then as a new little friend he must be made welcome.
"Talk to him a moment, Morris," Teacher commanded. "See if he won't tell
you what his name is."
Morris obeyed, and the child answered him in the words that had so upset
Miss Rosen. But Morris had left Russia when he was only two years old,
and the phrase held no meaning for him, though the tone made him pause.
"I don't know how he says," Morris reported to Miss Bailey. "I says out
of Jewish, 'What is your name, little boy?' und I don't know what he
says. On'y it ain't names, und it ain't lovin'."
"Very well, dear, you may go back to your place. I'll keep him here
beside me for a while," answered Teacher, more than ever at a loss, for
the winningness of Morris had never failed to charm a stranger.
At the recess hour, when all the other children filed down into the
yard, Teacher sent Patrick Brennan with a little note to Mr. Eissler,
the teacher of the biggest boys, those nearly ready for graduation. He
was an elderly man wearing well in the service to which the noblest of
his race have always devoted themselves. He and Miss Bailey were great
friends, and much of the understanding of this alien race--its habits,
its emotions, and its innate refinement--the understanding which made
her reign in Room 18 so peaceful and beneficent, she had acquired from
him, and from the books he lent her.
"Dear Mr. Eissler," ran the note. "Will you come to Room 18 when you are
at leisure? I have rather an interesting specimen of Child Life which I
am keeping for your inspection."
During the short period which had elapsed between the stranger's arrival
and the departure of First Readers, the new-comer had undergone an
entire change of manner. Not that he had softened toward his little
future companions. Rather he grew in hatred and vindictiveness as the
busy morning progressed. It was his attitude toward Miss Bailey which
changed. In the Principal's office and on the way through the halls he
had seemed to waver on the brink of friendliness. But he had sat beside
her desk and had seen her moving up and down through the narrow streets
of her kingdom, encouraging here, laughing there, explaining with
patient care and detail, laying a friendly hand on bent little shoulders
and setting hair ribbons more jauntily erect--behaving, in fact, with a
freedom and affection most evidently reflected and magnified by her
subjects. And as he watched her his little mouth lost all its softness,
and the hard, inscrutable look disfigured him again.
When Mr. Eissler, in response to the summons, opened the door, the
newcomer's back was toward it. He wheeled at the sound, and clear and
quick he lashed out his single phrase.
Miss Bailey chanced to be looking at her old friend, and at the child's
voice saw him cringe and shrink as if from a blow.
"There it is again," she cried. "That's all we can get him to say. Tell
me, Mr. Eissler, _what_ does it mean?"
She got no answer.
The man, in all the dignity of his cutaway and his white linen, was
glaring at the child, and the child, in his ridiculous rags, pitiful,
starved, and dirty, was looking the man over from top to toe with
contemptuous, careless eyes. They stood so for some space, and it was
the man who turned away.
"I will not pretend not to understand," said he to Teacher; "but I must
decline to translate those words. They bring back--they bring back! Ah,
God! what they bring back!"
"Ah, yes, I know!" said Miss Bailey, in vague but ready sympathy. "I'm
very, very sorry."
While this conversation was in progress its object was wandering about
Room 18, surveying its pictures, the canary, the gold-fish bowl, and the
flowery window-boxes with a blase air. Occasionally he glanced at Miss
Bailey with unfriendly disillusionment. And upon one of these occasions
Mr. Eissler, at Teacher's request, asked him his name.
The boy answered at greater length than before, but, judging by the
man's face, in equally offensive language, and Mr. Eissler turned to
Miss Bailey.
"The Principal will have some difficulty," said he, "in finding a
teacher who could speak that child's language. It's Russian, pure Court
Russian, and not spoken by our people except when they make a special
study of it. I know it, a little."
"And do you care to tell me," asked Miss Bailey, "any part of what he
said just now?"
"He says," the man replied, "that he will not speak to Jews or to--and
by this he means you--a seeming Christian, who makes the Jew her friend,
and allows Jewish babies to touch her hands. You've read of the Russian
autocratic spirit. Well! there you see it. Even in a little child. It's
born in them."
"But how did it get here?" marvelled Miss Bailey. "Here, on the East
Side of New York, where he must be just about as popular as a wolf cub?"
"Just about," answered Eissler. "Of course I'm not going to pretend to
tell you how this particular specimen got here. We've had one or two
cases where the Jews, driven out, kidnapped a Russian child in revenge.
And sometimes Nihilism and other Socialistic societies draw Jew and
Russian together. Perhaps the boy's mother is in Siberia digging
sulphur. Perhaps she's in Petersburg, designing becoming mourning. But
from the look of the boy and the Truant Officer's account of him, I feel
pretty safe in saying she isn't about here."
"Yes, I think you're safe in that. He hasn't been washed in a month."
"He'll be better after you've had him awhile," said Mr. Eissler
gallantly. "I back you against Hagenbeck as a taming influence."
"You flatter me," laughed Miss Bailey. "But I'll try. Of course I'll
try." But she had scant opportunity.
At luncheon time the new little boy departed with the others, and at
afternoon session he was not among them, as by law prescribed.
Day after day passed and brought no sign of him. Teacher reported her
bereavement to the authorities, and enjoined the First Readers to
produce the boy or tidings of him, and although they failed to procure
the boy, the tidings were not wanting. They rarely are in East Side
affairs. Morris Mowgelewsky was the first to procure definite
information.
"I seen that boy," he announced with pride. "I seen him runnin' down
Scannel Street, und I calls und says you likes you should see him in the
school, on'y he runs by a cellar und don't says nothings. He puts him on
just like he was here, und he had awful cold looks. Teacher, he ain't
got no hat, and the snow was coming by his hair. I looks in the cellar
und I had a 'fraid over it the whiles nothings stand in it on'y
push-carts und boxes."
"But do you think that he lives in the cellar?" queried Teacher.
"He don't _lives_ at all," replied Morris. "He don't _boards_ even. He
runs all times."
"Runs?" queried Miss Bailey.
"Teacher, yiss, ma'am, runs. He lays in sleep by barrels; comes
somebody, und he runs. He lays in sleep on sidewalks by bak'ry stores
where heat and smell comes; comes somebody, und he runs. He lays in
sleep by wagons, maybe, maybe by stables where horses is, und straw.
_All_ places what he could he lays in sleep, und _all_ places where he
lays comes somebody und he runs."
"What's he always running from, Morris?"
"Teacher, I dun'no. He ain't got no 'fraids. I guess maybe he don't
likes nobody shall make nothings mit him. I tells him how you says he
shall come on the school, und what you think? He hits me a hack in mine
face, und runs on the cellar."
"I'd like to see him hit me," said Patrick Brennan, son of the Policeman
on the Beat, a noble scion of a noble sire. "Me pop he wouldn't stand
fer no funny play," and urged by Miss Bailey's friendly attitude toward
Morris, he boasted, "I'll bring him to school if ye want me to; I ain't
afraid of him." And one afternoon some days later he did appear with his
"new little friend."
It had taken six big boys, Patrick, and the janitor to secure his
attendance, and he hardly reaped the benefit which so much effort
deserved, for, except that he was thinner and in a wildly blazing
passion of indignation, his second attendance at Room 18 was much like
his first.
Again his studies were interrupted for several days, and it was the
Truant Officer who next restored him to the Halls of Learning. Between
these two appearances Morris had procured further intelligence.
"That new boy," he began as always, "that new boy he is in bizzness."
"So that's the reason that he fights against school!" cried Teacher,
well accustomed to the interference of the sweat shop. "I'm very glad to
know his reason for staying away. I was beginning to fear he was not
happy here--that he didn't like us."
"Teacher, he don't," said Morris, with the beautiful candor which
adorned all his conversation. "He hates us."
"But why, why?" demanded Miss Bailey.
"He hates the childrens," the still candid Morris explained, "the whiles
they is Sheenies. He hates you the whiles you is Krisht."
"Rather an unfriendly attitude altogether," commented Teacher. "And how
do you know he hates me because I'm a Christian?"
"My mamma tells me how it is. She says he has mads the whiles you is
Krisht und makes all things what is loving mit Sheenies. My mamma says
he is Russians; und Russians they don't makes like that mit Sheenies.
Teacher, no ma'am, loving ain't what Russians makes mit us. They makes
all things what is fierce."
"I know, I know," said Constance Bailey, and then--"What is the little
boy's business?"
"Teacher, he's a fire-lighter."
"A fire-lighter," echoed Miss Bailey, with visions of arson before her
eyes. "A fire-lighter, did you say?"
"Teacher, yiss, ma'am, he is a fire-lighter, but sooner he wants he
could to come on the school the whiles he ain't got no bizzness on'y
Saturdays."
And then Miss Bailey understood. She had heard of certain stranded waifs
left high and dry when the ebb of Christianity receded before the flood
of Judaism, and New York's great East Side, once a fashionable
district, then claimed by a thrifty Irish element, became a Ghetto. It
was the Jewish Sabbatical Law which gave the derelicts an opportunity to
earn a few pennies every Saturday, for no orthodox Jew may kindle fire
on the Sabbath. And no frugal Jew, even in the impossible circumstance
of being able to afford it, will keep the stove alight all through
Friday night. Hence he employs a Christian to do the work he would not
stoop to.
And this was the occupation of that amazing new boy! Miss Bailey clearly
saw the path of her duty, and it led her, the lighter of fires in tow,
straight to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. For
some days, however, this path was closed to her conscientious feet. The
boy was lost again, and Miss Bailey, who took the welfare of her charges
very much to heart, was seriously distressed and uneasy. The First
Readers were enlisted as a corps of detectives, but though they prowled
in likely and unlikely spots, they brought no news of the stranger.
A week went by. The Principal, the Truant Officer, Patrick Brennan's
father, were all informed and enlisted in the quest. But day followed
day empty of news. Mr. Eissler could offer no suggestion, though he
promised that if the child should reappear he would make further and
more patient efforts to elicit some information from him. And then quite
casually one afternoon Sergeant Brennan appeared in Room 18, with a
bundle of rags under his arm.
"Here he is for you, Miss," he announced, waving away her
acknowledgments with a stout blue arm before he removed his helmet and
dried his heated brow. "I seen him several times since you spoke about
him, but never run him down until now."
Again the child was thinner, and his likeness to a hunted animal was
clearer, more heart-breaking. "And how should he be otherwise?"
reflected Constance Bailey as she realized that, partly through her
bidding, he actually had been persistently hunted throughout the past
weeks.
After three o'clock when the First Readers, including the loudly
objecting Board of Monitors, had been sent home, Miss Bailey secured
every exit save the door into the hall, established the new boy in one
of the front row of seats, locked the hall door upon her own retreat,
and sought Mr. Eissler.
"The Russian child has turned up again," she told him. "I've had him in
the class since lunch time, and I never knew of so disturbing an
element. A band in the street, a piano organ, even the passing of a
fire engine, would have left those babies calmer than his mere presence
did. Did you ever see a poultry yard when a hawk was perched in a
neighboring tree? Well, there you have my class as long as that boy is
in the room. Brainless! Stupid! Huddled in their seats! I declare I
hardly knew them. And he, he hardly looked at one of us."
"He'll look at me," said Mr. Eissler, picking up a brass-bound ruler.
"By-laws may be by-laws----"
"No, no," cried Teacher, "not that. I don't think I could bear it. And
as for him, he would either kill or die. He's almost spent with rage and
starvation. I think you'll find him more amenable than he was before."
Mr. Eissler did not find him at all. Room 18 awaited them, pleasant,
orderly, and empty. Empty, too, was the whole great building and all
the rooms they searched through, save for the sweeper women who met
their queries blankly. They had noticed no boy.
"Again!" exclaimed Miss Bailey, almost tearfully, as they returned.
"What shall I ever do about him? I meant, you know, to take him now,
this very afternoon, while I had him, up to the Society's rooms in
Twenty-third Street."
"How often has he been here altogether?" asked Mr. Eissler. Teacher
crossed to her desk, sat down at it, and commenced to turn the pages of
the Roll Book with listless hand. Mr. Eissler stood beside her, and
behind them both the door of the supply closet in which all class
necessities were stored opened gently, noiselessly, inch by inch, until
the Fire-lighter stood forth with a sheet of sulphur matches in his
hand. The joy of coming vengeance made his little face look very old as
he advanced upon the unsuspecting backs of his enemies. He struck one of
his matches upon some inner surface of his rags, and as Teacher pointed
and Mr. Eissler stopped to examine all the crosses which marked one
section of the Roll Book, the Fire-lighter held the match to the hem of
Miss Bailey's heavy walking skirt. It burned dully, and the child had
shut himself into the closet again before the smell of fire was noticed
and located.
Then alarmed and excited was Mr. Eissler, but not reduced to panic. In a
moment he had smothered the smoulder, and was beating off the sparks
with his ruler.
Miss Bailey just then chanced to turn toward the closet door and saw a
curl of smoke making its way stealthily through a crack in one of the
panels. Mr. Eissler saw it too, threw the door open, and revealed the
lost child--his rags all smoking and smouldering about him. They threw
Miss Bailey's heavy ulster about him, and rolled him upon the floor,
patting and pressing the bundle until they were quite sure that no fire
remained. Then Teacher, kneeling down, turned back the ulster. Very
quiet and relaxed lay her problem.
"Dead?" she questioned in terror.
"Oh, hardly. Slip your hand in over his heart."
Teacher did so and breathed again. "Beating," said she, and withdrew her
hand, and in her cuff-link was entangled a thin string.
"Gold," exclaimed Eissler instantly; "dirty, but gold."
Miss Bailey drew the chain out further and disclosed a flat locket.
"Cut it off and keep it for him," Eissler advised. "I'm going to ring
for the ambulance, and I know that there would be precious little gold
left on him by the time he reached the ward. I'll send one of the women
to you as I go." And so Miss Bailey sat on the floor and regarded this
bitter fruit of her striving. A child--a little child, hunted, wounded,
as far as she could see even unto death. And for the thousandth time she
let despair roll over her. What was the use? What _was_ the use?
Some time later up in the dressing-room she was removing as best she
could the marks of her experience, when it occurred to her to examine
the locket. It was a thin gold affair with a smudge of dirt upon each
side of it, and she devoted her efforts to one of these smudges. She
rubbed it with a towel, and stood incredulous, carried back to the
Mystery Stories of her own youth, for a monogram in diamonds winked and
twinkled at her. She tried the other side and unearthed a coronet. After
much careful search she managed to open the locket. And the Mystery
held. On one side a beautiful woman, on the other a coil of baby hair.
All was as it should be.
As she finished the transition from white linen to street attire, she
pondered and marvelled, and by the time her veil was adjusted she had
decided upon her course. This was a case for some one more learned in
Russian ways than Mr. Eissler, and after consulting the nearest
directory she set out for the Russian Consulate. There her demand for
speech with the Consul General was met by the Vice-Consul's bland
regrets that his principal was invisible. "Closeted," he reported,
dropping his voice and nodding toward the closed door behind him, "with
His Excellency, Prince Epifanoff."
"Then," said Miss Bailey, "perhaps you can tell me something of your
Russian charities. I want you to direct me to an institution where a
sick little boy can find attention and understanding. He has sadly
lacked both these many weeks, I fear."
The Vice-Consul, a man of heart, listened with kindly but restrained
attention until Miss Bailey produced the locket on its severed chain.
Then even that practised diplomat allowed amazement to overspread him.
"May I ask you to wait here for a moment?" said he, and it took him
little more than the moment he appointed to disappear through the door
of the inner room, and to reappear.
"And may I ask you now," said he, "to tell these very interesting facts
to Prince Epifanoff and the Consul?"
Constance Bailey was slightly disconcerted by this sudden plunge into
diplomatic waters, and by the extremely thorough, though always
courteous, cross-examination to which she was promptly subjected.
"May I ask," she demanded on her own part when she was growing weary of
always answering, "whether you have identified the miniature?"