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ATLANTIC NARRATIVES
Modern Short Stories
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, A.M.
_Head of Department of English, Cleveland School of Education
Lecturer in the Harvard Summer School_
SECOND SERIES
[Illustration: colophon]
The Atlantic Monthly Press
BOSTON
_Copyright, 1918, by_
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION vii
THE LIE _Mary Antin_ 1
BLUE REEFERS _Elizabeth Ashe_ 29
THE DEBT _Kathleen Carman_ 40
SETH MILES AND THE SACRED
FIRE _Cornelia A. P. Comer_ 50
BURIED TREASURE _Mazo De La Roche_ 69
THE PRINCESS OF MAKE-BELIEVE _Annie Hamilton Donnell_ 94
THE TWO APPLES _James Edmund Dunning_ 100
THE PURPLE STAR _Rebecca Hooper Eastman_ 105
RUGGS--R.O.T.C. _William Addleman Ganoe_ 125
THE WAY OF LIFE _Lucy Huffaker_ 145
A YEAR IN A COAL-MINE _Joseph Husband_ 159
WOMAN’S SPHERE _S. H. Kemper_ 181
BABANCHIK _Christina Krysto_ 190
ROSITA _Ellen Mackubin_ 207
PERJURED _Edith Ronald Mirrielees_ 222
WHAT MR. GREY SAID _Margaret Prescott Montague_ 237
A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION _E. Morlae_ 249
THE BOULEVARD OF ROGUES _Meredith Nicholson_ 274
WHAT HAPPENED TO ALANNA _Kathleen Norris_ 282
SPENDTHRIFTS _Laura Spencer Portor_ 298
CHILDREN WANTED _Lucy Pratt_ 323
THE SQUIRE _Elsie Singmaster_ 339
GREGORY AND THE SCUTTLE _Charles Haskins Townsend_ 350
IN NOVEMBER _Edith Wyatt_ 357
BIOGRAPHICAL AND INTERPRETATIVE NOTES 369
INTRODUCTION
FOR those readers who have from early childhood been taught that the
best things are the old things, it is oftentimes difficult to revert in
imagination to the times when such classics as _Paradise Lost_,
_Pilgrim’s Progress_, and _Robinson Crusoe_, new and unread, were just
beginning to make their first tentative steps in the march toward the
unknown and unseen goal of enduring fame. Yet the intrinsic literary
worth of these classics was obviously just as firm in those far-off days
of their initial appearance as in these present days of their acquired
renown.
But in these present days, with the improved printing-presses moving at
high speed and pouring forth everywhere their improvident and unsifted
store, the best is too liable to be lost within the swift current of a
vast and turbid abundance. It is, therefore, worth while for us--for
those of us who have an abiding love of literature--to endeavor to
rescue and place in more permanent form the choicest bits of this modern
efflux of writing, and make it easily available for a more leisurely and
intelligent perusal.
With this thought in mind, I have for several months been reading widely
in the files of the _Atlantic Monthly_, with the idea of republishing
the best of the recent stories in book form. A partial result of my
labors is seen in _Atlantic Narratives_ (First Series), published by the
Atlantic Monthly Press in March of the current year. In selecting the
twenty-three stories for that volume, I had the college student and the
mature reader more definitely in mind. Some of these stories,
accordingly, were perhaps a trifle too subtle and analytical for the
younger student, though it is interesting to note that the volume
immediately found an interested audience, not only among college
students and the reading public, but also within the classrooms of some
of our best schools and academies.
Several of the more prominent English teachers, however, expressed a
wish for a group of narratives simpler, more direct, and filled with
incidents of a commoner and more elemental experience--such as would
make an immediate appeal to a younger class of readers. I have
accordingly made the selections for this second volume of _Atlantic
Narratives_ with this particular request in mind. At the same time that
I have discarded the subtler and more analytical themes, I have held
rigorously to the demand for genuine literary excellence and artistic
technique. Discriminating critics will agree that for a writer to limit
himself to the narrower confines of the simple and the commonplace and
the elemental, may, in particular cases, demand even a finer grace and a
higher technique.
The stories here gathered together, while possessing the attributes and
range which the English teachers have suggested, are widely varying in
appeal and in centres of interest. Miss Mary Antin’s story, 'The Lie,'
for example, reveals, in significant portrayal, a unique attitude of
mind among the patriotic foreigners; Miss Elizabeth Ashe, Miss Kathleen
Norris, and S. H. Kemper have, in their several manners, pleasantly
revealed their appreciation of the humorous; Mrs. Comer and Miss Eastman
and Mr. Meredith Nicholson have lent a note of idealism; Mr. Joseph
Husband and Mr. E. Morlae have contributed true accounts of their
personal experiences; and the remaining writers on the list have, in
their various individual ways, found still other moods and themes
appropriate to their individualities. The net result is a literary
variety that merges appropriately, I trust, into a unit of genuine and
abiding worth.
For helpful aid in the preparation of this volume, I am indebted to many
English teachers, more particularly to Miss Anna Shaughnessy, of the
English department in the Newton High School. Houghton Mifflin Company
has generously granted me permission to use Mr. Husband’s 'The Story of
a Coal-Mine.' Mr. George B. Ives, expert critic and proof-reader, of the
_Atlantic Monthly_ staff, has read and revised the proofs. Most of all,
however, I am indebted to Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the _Atlantic
Monthly_, whose friendly counsel and literary acumen have been of
constant service.
C. S. T.
BOSTON, MASS.
_July, 1918_
ATLANTIC NARRATIVES
THE LIE
BY MARY ANTIN
I
THE first thing about his American teachers that struck David Rudinsky
was the fact that they were women, and the second was that they did not
get angry if somebody asked questions. This phenomenon subverted his
previous experience. When he went to _heder_ (Hebrew school), in Russia,
his teachers were always men, and they did not like to be interrupted
with questions that were not in the lesson. Everything was different in
America, and David liked the difference.
The American teachers, on their part, also made comparisons. They said
David was not like other children. It was not merely that his mind
worked like lightning; those neglected Russian waifs were almost always
quick to learn, perhaps because they had to make up for lost time. The
quality of his interest, more than the rapidity of his progress, excited
comment. Miss Ralston, David’s teacher in the sixth grade, which he
reached in his second year at school, said of him that he never let go
of a lesson till he had got the soul of the matter. 'I don’t think
grammar is grammar to him,' she said, 'or fractions mere arithmetic. I’m
not satisfied with the way I teach these things since I’ve had David. I
feel that if he were on the platform instead of me, geography and
grammar would be spliced to the core of the universe.'
One difficulty David’s teachers encountered, and that was his extreme
reserve. In private conversation it was hard to get anything out of him
except 'yes, ma’am' and 'no, ma’am,' or, 'I don’t understand, please.'
In the classroom he did not seem to be aware of the existence of anybody
besides Teacher and himself. He asked questions as fast as he could
formulate them, and Teacher had to exercise much tact in order to
satisfy him without slighting the rest of her pupils. To advances of a
personal sort he did not respond, as if friendship were not among the
things he hungered for.
It was Miss Ralston who found the way to David’s heart. Perhaps she was
interested in such things; they sometimes are, in the public schools.
After the Christmas holidays, the children were given as a subject for
composition, 'How I spent the Vacation.' David wrote in a froth of
enthusiasm about whole days spent in the public library. He covered
twelve pages with an account of the books he had read. The list included
many juvenile classics in American history and biography; and from his
comments it was plain that the little alien worshiped the heroes of war.
When Miss Ralston had read David’s composition, she knew what to do. She
was one of those persons who always know what to do, and do it. She
asked David to stay after school, and read to him, from a blue book with
gilt lettering, 'Paul Revere’s Ride' and 'Independence Bell.' That hour
neither of them ever forgot. To David it seemed as if all the heroes he
had dreamed of crowded around him, so real did his teacher’s reading
make them. He heard the clash of swords and the flapping of banners in
the wind. On the blackboard behind Miss Ralston troops of faces appeared
and vanished, like the shadows that run across a hillside when clouds
are moving in the sky. As for Miss Ralston, she said afterwards that she
was the first person who had ever seen the real David Rudinsky. That was
a curious statement to make, considering that his mother and father,
and sundry other persons in the two hemispheres, had had some
acquaintance with David previous to the reading of 'Paul Revere’s Ride.'
However, Miss Ralston had a way of saying curious things.
There were many readings out of school hours, after that memorable
beginning. Miss Ralston did not seem to realize that the School Board
did not pay her for those extra hours that she spent on David. David did
not know that she was paid at all. He thought Teacher was born on
purpose to read and tell him things and answer his questions, just as
his mother existed to cook his favorite soup and patch his trousers. So
he brought his pet book from the library, and when the last pupil was
gone, he took it from his desk and laid it on Miss Ralston’s, without a
word; and Miss Ralston read, and they were both happy. When a little
Jewish boy from Russia goes to school in America, all sorts of things
are likely to happen that the School Board does not provide for. It
might be amusing to figure out the reasons.
David’s reserve slowly melted in the glowing intimacy of these happy
half-hours; still, he seldom made any comment on the reading at the
time; he basked mutely in the warmth of his teacher’s sympathy. But what
he did not say orally he was very likely to say on paper. That also was
one of Miss Ralston’s discoveries. When she gave out the theme, 'What I
Mean to Do When I Grow Up,' David wrote that he was going to be an
American citizen, and always vote for honest candidates, and belong to a
society for arresting illegal voters. You see David was only a
greenhorn, and an excitable one. He thought it a very great matter to be
a citizen, perhaps because such a thing was not allowed in the country
he came from. Miss Ralston probably knew how it was with him, or she
guessed. She was great at guessing, as all her children knew. At any
rate, she did not smile as she read of David’s patriotic ambitions. She
put his paper aside until their next quiet hour, and then she used it so
as to get a great deal out of him that he would not have had the courage
to tell if he had not believed that it was an exercise in composition.
This Miss Ralston was a crafty person. She learned from David about a
Jewish restaurant where his father sometimes took him; a place where a
group of ardent young Russians discussed politics over their inexpensive
dinner. She heard about a mass meeting of Russian Jews to celebrate the
death of Alexander III, 'because he was a cruel tyrant, and was very bad
to Jewish people.' She even tracked some astonishing phrases in David’s
vocabulary to their origin in the Sunday orations he had heard on the
Common, in his father’s company.
Impressed by these and other signs of paternal interest in her pupil’s
education, Miss Ralston was not unprepared for the visit which David’s
father paid her soon after these revelations. It was a very cold day,
and Mr. Rudinsky shivered in his thin, shabby overcoat; but his face
glowed with inner warmth as he discovered David’s undersized figure in
one of the front seats.
'I don’t know how to say it what I feel to see my boy sitting and
learning like this,' he said, with a vibration in his voice that told
more than his words. 'Do you know, ma’am, if I didn’t have to make a
living, I’d like to stay here all day and see my David get educated. I’m
forty years old, and I’ve had much in my life, but it’s worth nothing so
much as this. The day I brought my children to school, it was the best
day in my life. Perhaps you won’t believe me, ma’am, but when I hear
that David is a good boy and learns good in school, I wouldn’t change
places with Vanderbilt the millionaire.'
He looked at Miss Ralston with the eyes of David listening to 'Paul
Revere’s Ride.'
'What do you think, ma’am,' he asked, as he got up to leave, 'my David
will be a good American, no?'
'He ought to be,' said Miss Ralston, warmly, 'with such a father.'
Mr. Rudinsky did not try to hide his gratification.
'I am a citizen,' he said, unconsciously straightening. 'I took out
citizen papers as soon as I came to America, four years ago.'
So they came to the middle of February, when preparations for
Washington’s Birthday were well along. One day the class was singing
'America,' when Miss Ralston noticed that David stopped and stared
absently at the blackboard in front of him. He did not wake out of his
reverie till the singing was over, and then he raised his hand.
'Teacher,' he asked, when he had permission to speak, 'what does it
mean, "Land where my fathers died"?'
Miss Ralston explained, wondering how many of her pupils cared to
analyze the familiar words as David did.
A few days later, the national hymn was sung again. Miss Ralston watched
David. His lips formed the words 'Land where my fathers died,' and then
they stopped, set in the pout of childish trouble. His eyes fixed
themselves on the teacher’s, but her smile of encouragement failed to
dispel his evident perplexity.
Anxious to help him over his unaccountable difficulty, Miss Ralston
detained him after school.
'David,' she asked him, when they were alone, 'do you understand
"America" now?'
'Yes, ma’am.'
'Do you understand "Land where my fathers died"?'
'Yes, ma’am.'
'You didn’t sing with the others.'
'No, ma’am.'
Miss Ralston thought of a question that would rouse him.
'Don’t you like "America," David?'
The boy almost jumped in his place.
'Oh, yes, ma’am, I do! I like "America." It’s--fine.'
He pressed his fist nervously to his mouth, a trick he had when excited.
'Tell me, David, why you don’t sing it.'
David’s eyes fixed themselves in a look of hopeless longing. He answered
in a whisper, his pale face slowly reddening.
'My fathers didn’t die here. How can I sing such a lie?'
Miss Ralston’s impulse was to hug the child, but she was afraid of
startling him. The attention she had lavished on the boy was rewarded at
this moment, when her understanding of his nature inspired the answer to
his troubled question. She saw how his mind worked. She realized, what a
less sympathetic witness might have failed to realize, that behind the
moral scruple expressed in his words, there was a sense of irreparable
loss derived from the knowledge that he had no share in the national
past. The other children could shout the American hymn in all the pride
of proprietorship, but to him the words did not apply. It was a flaw in
his citizenship, which he was so jealous to establish.
The teacher’s words were the very essence of tact and sympathy. In her
voice were mingled the yearning of a mother and the faith of a comrade.
'David Rudinsky, you have as much a right to those words as I or anybody
else in America. Your ancestors did not die on our battlefields, but
they would have if they’d had a chance. You used to spend all your time
reading the Hebrew books, in Russia. Don’t you know how your
people--your ancestors, perhaps!--fought the Roman tyrants? Don’t you
remember the Maccabean brothers, and Bar Kochba, and--oh, you know
about them more than I! I’m ashamed to tell you that I haven’t read much
Jewish history, but I’m sure if we begin to look it up, we’ll find that
people of your race--people like your father, David--took part in the
fight for freedom, wherever they were allowed. And even in this
country--David, I’m going to find out for you how many Jews there were
in the armies of the Revolution. We don’t think about it here, you see,
because we don’t ask what a man’s religion is, as long as he is brave
and good.'
David’s eyes slowly lost their look of distress as his teacher talked.
His tense little face, upturned to hers, reminded her of a withered
blossom that revives in the rain. She went on with increasing
earnestness, herself interested in the discoveries she was making, in
her need.
'I tell you the truth, David, I never thought of these things before,
but I do believe that the Pilgrim Fathers didn’t all come here before
the Revolution. Isn’t your father just like them? Think of it, dear, how
he left his home, and came to a strange land, where he couldn’t even
speak the language. That was a great trouble, you know; something like
the fear of the Indians in the old days. And wasn’t he looking for the
very same things? He wanted freedom for himself and his family, and a
chance for his children to grow up wise and brave. You know your father
cares more for such things than he does for money or anything. It’s the
same story over again. Every ship that brings your people from Russia
and other countries where they are ill-treated is a Mayflower. If I were
a Jewish child like you, I would sing "America" louder than anybody
else!'
David’s adoring eyes gave her the thanks which his tongue would not
venture to utter. Never since that moment, soon after his arrival from
Russia, when his father showed him his citizenship papers, saying,
'Look, my son, this makes you an American,' had he felt so secure in
his place in the world.
Miss Ralston studied his face in silence while she gathered up some
papers on her desk, preparatory to leaving. In the back of her mind she
asked herself to how many of the native children in her class the Fourth
of July meant anything besides fire-crackers.
'Get your things, David,' she said presently, as she locked her desk.
'It’s time we were going. Think if we should get locked up in the
building!'
David smiled absently. In his ears ran the familiar line, 'Land where my
fathers died--my fathers died--fathers died.'
'It’s something like the Psalms!' he said suddenly, himself surprised at
the discovery.
'What is like the Psalms, dear?'
He hesitated. Now that he had to explain, he was not sure any more. Miss
Ralston helped him out.
'You mean "America," sounds like the Psalms to you?' David nodded. His
teacher beamed her understanding. How did she guess wherein the
similarity lay? David had in mind such moments as this when he said of
Miss Ralston, 'Teacher talks with her eyes.'
Miss Ralston went to get her coat and hat from the closet.
'Get your things, David,' she repeated. 'The janitor will come to chase
us out in a minute.'
He was struggling with the torn lining of a coat-sleeve in the
children’s dressing-room, when he heard Miss Ralston exclaim,--
'Oh, David! I had almost forgotten. You must try this on. This is what
you’re going to wear when you speak the dialogue with Annie and Raymond.
We used it in a play a few years ago. I thought it would do for you.'
She held up a blue-and-buff jacket with tarnished epaulets. David
hurried to put it on. He was to take the part of George Washington in
the dialogue. At sight of the costume, his heart started off on a
gallop.
Alas for his gallant aspirations! Nothing of David was visible outside
the jacket except two big eyes above and two blunt boot-toes below. The
collar reached to his ears; the cuffs dangled below his knees. He
resembled a scarecrow in the cornfield more than the Father of his
Country.
Miss Ralston suppressed her desire to laugh.
'It’s a little big, isn’t it?' she said cheerily, holding up the
shoulders of the heroic garment. 'I wonder how we can make it fit. Don’t
you think your mother would know how to take up the sleeves and do
something to the back?'
She turned the boy around, more hopeless than she would let him see.
Miss Ralston understood more about little boys' hearts than about their
coats.
'How old are you, David?' she asked, absently, wondering for the
hundredth time at his diminutive stature. 'I thought the boy for whom
this was made was about your age.'
David’s face showed that he felt reproved. 'I’m twelve,' he said,
apologetically.
Miss Ralston reproached herself for her tactlessness, and proceeded to
make amends.
'Twelve?' she repeated, patting the blue shoulders. 'You speak the lines
like a much older boy. I’m sure your mother can make the coat fit, and
I’ll bring the wig--a powdered wig--and the sword, David! You’ll look
just like George Washington!'
Her gay voice echoed in the empty room. Her friendly eyes challenged
his. She expected to see him kindle, as he did so readily in these days
of patriotic excitement. But David failed to respond. He remained
motionless in his place, his eyes blank and staring. Miss Ralston had
the feeling that behind his dead front his soul was running away from
her.
This is just what was happening. David was running away from her, and
from himself, and from the image of George Washington, conjured up by
the scene with the military coat. Somewhere in the jungle of his
consciousness a monster was stirring, and his soul fled in terror of its
clutch. What was it--what was it that came tearing through the
wilderness of his memories of two worlds? In vain he tried not to
understand. The ghosts of forgotten impressions cackled in the wake of
the pursuing monster, the breath of whose nostrils spread an odor of
evil sophistries grafted on his boyish thoughts in a chimerical past.
His mind reeled in a whirlwind of recollection. Miss Ralston could not
have understood some of the things David reviewed, even if he had tried
to tell her. In that other life of his, in Russia, had been monstrous
things, things that seemed unbelievable to David himself, after his
short experience of America. He had suffered many wrongs,--yes, even as
a little boy,--but he was not thinking of past grievances as he stood
before Miss Ralston, seeing her as one sees a light through a fog. He
was thinking of things harder to forget than injuries received from
others. It was a sudden sense of his own sins that frightened David, and
of one sin in particular, the origin of which was buried somewhere in
the slime of the evil past. David was caught in the meshes of a complex
inheritance; contradictory impulses tore at his heart. Fearfully he
dived to the bottom of his consciousness, and brought up a bitter
conviction: David Rudinsky, who called himself an American, who
worshiped the names of the heroes, suddenly knew that he had sinned,
sinned against his best friend, sinned even as he was planning to
impersonate George Washington, the pattern of honor.
His white forehead glistened with the sweat of anguish. His eyes
sickened. Miss Ralston caught him as he wavered and put him in the
nearest seat.
'Why, David! what’s the matter? Are you ill? Let me take this off--it’s
so heavy. There, that’s better. Just rest your head on me, so.'
This roused him. He wriggled away from her support, and put out a hand
to keep her off.
'Why, David! what _is_ the matter? Your hands are so cold--'
David’s head felt heavy and wobbly, but he stood up and began to put on
his coat again, which he had pulled off in order to try on the uniform.
To Miss Ralston’s anxious questions he answered not a syllable, neither
did he look at her once. His teacher, thoroughly alarmed, hurriedly put
on her street things, intending to take him home. They walked in silence
through the empty corridors, down the stairs, and across the school
yard. The teacher noticed with relief that the boy grew steadier with
every step. She smiled at him encouragingly when he opened the gate for
her, as she had taught him, but he did not meet her look.
At the corner where they usually parted David paused, steeling himself
to take his teacher’s hand; but to his surprise she kept right on,
taking _his_ crossing.
It was now that he spoke, and Miss Ralston was astonished at the alarm
in his voice.
'Miss Ralston, where are you going? You don’t go this way.'
'I’m going to see you home, David,' she replied firmly. 'I can’t let you
go alone--like this.'
'Oh, teacher, don’t, please don’t! I’m all right--I’m not sick,--it’s
not far--Don’t, Miss Ralston, _please_!'
In the February dusk, Miss Ralston saw the tears rise to his eyes.
Whatever was wrong with him, it was plain that her presence only made
him suffer the more. Accordingly she yielded to his entreaty.
'I hope you’ll be all right, David,' she said, in a tone she might have
used to a full-grown man. 'Good-bye.' And she turned the corner.
II
All the way home Miss Ralston debated the wisdom of allowing him to go
alone, but as she recalled his look and his entreating voice, she felt
anew the compulsion that had made her yield. She attributed his sudden
breakdown entirely to overwrought nerves, and remorsefully resolved not
to subject him in the future to the strain of extra hours after school.
Her misgivings were revived the next morning, when David failed to
appear with the ringing of the first gong, as was his habit. But before
the children had taken their seats, David’s younger brother, Bennie,
brought her news of the missing boy.
'David’s sick in bed,' he announced in accents of extreme importance.
'He didn’t come home till awful late last night, and he was so frozen,
his teeth knocked together. My mother says he burned like a fire all
night, and she had to take little Harry in her bed, with her and papa,
so’s David could sleep all alone. We all went downstairs in our bare
feet this morning, and dressed ourselves in the kitchen, so David could
sleep.'
'What is the matter with him? Did you have the doctor?'
'No, ma’am, not yet. The dispensary don’t open till nine o’clock.'
Miss Ralston begged him to report again in the afternoon, which he did,
standing before her, cap in hand, his sense of importance still
dominating over brotherly concern.
'He’s sick, all right,' Bennie reported. 'He don’t eat at all--just
drinks and drinks. My mother says he cried the whole morning, when he
woke up and found out he’d missed school. My mother says he tried to get
up and dress himself, but he couldn’t anyhow. Too sick.'
'Did you have the doctor?' interrupted Miss Ralston, suppressing her
impatience.
'No, ma’am, not yet. My father went to the dispensary but the doctor
said he can’t come till noon, but he didn’t. Then I went to the
dispensary, dinner time, but the doctor didn’t yet come when we went
back to school. My mother says you can die ten times before the
dispensary doctor comes.'
'What does your mother think it is?'
'Oh, she says it’s a bad cold; but David isn’t strong, you know, so
she’s scared. I guess if he gets worse I’ll have to stay home from
school to run for the medicines.'
'I hope not Bennie. Now you’d better run along, or you’ll be late.'
'Yes, ma’am. Good-bye.'
'Will you come again in the morning and tell me about your brother?'
'Yes, ma’am. Good-bye.--Teacher.'
'Yes, Bennie?'
'Do you think you can do something--something--about his _record_? David
feels dreadful because he’s broke his record. He never missed school
before, you know. It’s--it’s too bad to see him cry. He’s always so
quiet, you know, kind of like grown people. He don’t fight or tease or
anything. Do you think you can, teacher?'
Miss Ralston was touched by this tribute to her pupil, but she could not
promise to mend the broken record.
'Tell David not to worry. He has the best record in the school, for
attendance and everything. Tell him I said he must hurry and get well,
as we must rehearse our pieces for Washington’s Birthday.'
The next morning Bennie reeled off a longer story than ever. He
described the doctor’s visit in great detail, and Miss Ralston was
relieved to gather that David’s ailment was nothing worse than grippe;
unless, as the doctor warned, his run-down condition caused
complications. He would be in bed a week or more, in any case, 'and he
ought to sleep most of the time, the doctor said.'
'I guess the doctor don’t know our David!' Bennie scoffed. 'He never
wants at all to go to sleep. He reads and reads when everybody goes to
bed. One time he was reading all night, and the lamp went out, and he
was afraid to go downstairs for oil, because he’d wake somebody, so he
lighted matches and read little bits. There was a heap of burned matches
in the morning.'
'Dear me!' exclaimed Miss Ralston. 'He ought not to do that. Your father
ought not--Does your father allow him to stay up nights?'
'Sure. My father’s proud because he’s going to be a great man; a doctor,
maybe.' He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, 'What may not a David
become?'
'David is funny, don’t you think, teacher?' the boy went on. 'He asks
such funny questions. What do you think he said to the doctor?'
'I can’t imagine.'
'Well, he pulled him by the sleeve when he took out the--the thing he
puts in your mouth, and said kind of hoarse, "Doctor, did you ever tell
a lie?" Wasn’t that funny?'
Miss Ralston did not answer. She was thinking that David must have been
turning over some problem in his mind, to say so much to a stranger.
'Did you give him my message?' she asked finally.
'Yes’m! I told him about rehearsing his piece for Washington’s
Birthday.' Bennie paused.
'Well?'
'He acted so funny. He turned over to the wall, and cried and cried
without any noise.'
'The poor boy! He’ll be dreadfully disappointed not to take his part in
the exercises.'
Bennie shook his head.
'That isn’t for what he cries,' he said oracularly.
Miss Ralston’s attentive silence invited further revelations.
'He’s _worrying_ about something,' Bennie brought out, rolling his head
ominously.
'Why? How do you know?'
'The doctor said so. He told my father downstairs. He said, "Make him
tell, if you can, it may help to pull him off"--no, "pull him up."
That’s what the doctor said.'
Miss Ralston’s thoughts flew back to her last interview with David, two
days before, when he had broken down so suddenly. Was there a mystery
there? She was certain the boy was overwrought, and physically run down.
Apparently, also, he had been exposed to the weather during the evening
when he was taken ill; Bennie’s chatter indicated that David had
wandered in the streets for hours. These things would account for the
grippe, and for the abnormal fever of which Bennie boasted. But what was
David worrying about? She resolved to go and see the boy in a day or
two, when he was reported to be more comfortable.
On his next visit Bennie brought a message from the patient himself.
'He said to give you this, teacher,' handing Miss Ralston a journal.
'It’s yours. It has the pieces in it for Washington’s Birthday. He said
you might need it, and the doctor didn’t say when he could go again to
school.'
Miss Ralston laid the journal carelessly on a pile of other papers.
Bennie balanced himself on one foot, looking as if his mission were not
yet ended.
'Well, Bennie?' Miss Ralston encouraged him. She was beginning to
understand his mysterious airs.
'David was awful careful about that book,' the messenger said
impressively. 'He said over and over not to lose it, and not to give it
to nobody only you.'
III
It was not till the end of the day that Miss Ralston took up the journal
Bennie had brought. She turned the leaves absently, thinking of David.
He would be so disappointed to miss the exercises! And to whom should
she give the part of George Washington in the dialogue? She found the
piece in the journal. A scrap of paper marked the place. A folded paper.
Folded several times. Miss Ralston opened out the paper and found some
writing.
'DEAR TEACHER MISS RALSTON,--
'I can’t be George Washington any more because I have lied to you.
I must not tell you about what, because you would blame somebody
who didn’t do wrong.
'Your friend,
'DAVID RUDINSKY.'
Again and again Miss Ralston read the note, unable to understand it.
David, her David, whose soul was a mirror for every noble idea, had lied
to her! What could he mean? What had impelled him? _Somebody who didn’t
do wrong._ So it was not David alone; there was some complication with
another person. She studied the note word for word and her eyes slowly
filled with tears. If the boy had really lied--if the whole thing were
not a chimera of his fevered nights--then what must he have suffered of
remorse and shame! Her heart went out to him even while her brain was
busy with the mystery.
She made a swift resolution. She would go to David at once. She was sure
he would tell her more than he had written, and it would relieve his
mind. She did not dread the possible disclosures. Her knowledge of the
boy made her certain that she would find nothing ignoble at the bottom
of his mystery. He was only a child, after all--an overwrought,
sensitive child. No doubt he exaggerated his sin, if sin there were. It
was her duty to go and put him at rest.
She knew that David’s father kept a candy shop in the basement of his
tenement, and she had no trouble in finding the place. Half the children
in the neighborhood escorted her to the door, attracted by the
phenomenon of a teacher loose on their streets.
The tinkle of the shop-bell brought Mr. Rudinsky from the little kitchen
in the rear.
'Well, well!' he exclaimed, shaking hands heartily. 'This is a great
honor--a great honor.' He sounded the initial _h_. 'I wish I had a
palace for you to come in, ma’am. I don’t think there was such company
in this house since it was built.'
His tone was one of genuine gratification. Ushering her into the
kitchen, he set a chair for her, and himself sat down at a respectful
distance.
'I’m sorry,' he began, with a wave of his hand around the room. 'Such
company ought not to sit in the kitchen, but you see--'
He was interrupted by Bennie, who had clattered in at the visitor’s
heels, panting for recognition.
'Never mind, teacher,' the youngster spoke up, 'we got a parlor
upstairs, with a mantelpiece and everything, but David sleeps up
there--the doctor said it’s the most air--and you dassn’t wake him up
till he wakes himself.'
Bennie’s father frowned, but the visitor smiled a cordial smile.
'I like a friendly kitchen like this,' she said quietly. 'My mother did
not keep any help when I was a little girl and I was a great deal in the
kitchen.'
Her host showed his appreciation of her tact by dropping the subject.
'I’m sure you came about David,' he said.
'I did. How is he?'
'Pretty sick, ma’am. The doctor says it’s not the sickness so much, but
David is so weak and small. He says David studies too much altogether.
Maybe he’s right. What do you think, ma’am?'
Miss Ralston answered remorsefully.
'I agree with the doctor. I think we are all to blame. We push him too
much when we ought to hold him back.'
Here Bennie made another raid on the conversation.
'He’s going to be a great man, a doctor maybe. My mother says--'
Mr. Rudinsky did not let him finish. He thought it time to insure the
peace of so important an interview.
'Bennie,' said he, 'you will go mind the store, and keep the kitchen
door shut.'
Bennie’s discomfiture was evident in his face. He obeyed, but not
without a murmur.
'Let us make a covenant to take better care of David in the future.'
Miss Ralston was speaking when Mrs. Rudinsky appeared in the doorway.
She was flushed from the exertions of a hasty toilet, for which she had
fled upstairs at the approach of 'company.' She came forward timidly,
holding out a hand on which the scrubbing brush and the paring knife had
left their respective marks.
'How do you do, ma’am?' she said, cordially, but shyly. 'I’m glad to see
you. I wish I can speak English better, I’d like to say how proud I am
to see David’s teacher in my house.'
'Why, you speak wonderfully!' Miss Ralston exclaimed, with genuine
enthusiasm. 'I don’t understand how you pick up the language in such a
short time. I couldn’t learn Russian so fast, I’m sure.'
'My husband makes us speak English all the time,' Mrs. Rudinsky replied.
'From the fust day he said to speak English. He scolds the children if
he hears they speak Jewish.'
'Sure,' put in her husband, 'I don’t want my family to be greenhorns.'
Miss Ralston turned a glowing face to him.
'Mr. Rudinsky, I think you’ve done wonders for your family. If all
immigrants were like you, we wouldn’t need any restriction laws.' She
threw all possible emphasis into her cordial voice. 'Why, you’re a
better American than some natives I know!'
Mrs. Rudinsky sent her husband a look of loving pride.
'He wants to be a Yankee,' she said.
Her husband took up the cue in earnest.
'Yes, ma’am,' he said, 'that’s my ambition. When I was a young man, in
the old country, I wanted to be a scholar. But a Jew has no chance in
the old country; perhaps you know how it is. It wasn’t the Hebrew books
I wanted. I wanted to learn what the rest of the world learned, but a
poor Jew had no chance in Russia. When I got to America, it was too late
for me to go to school. It took me all my time and strength to make a
living--I’ve never been much good in business, ma’am--and when I got my
family over, I saw that it was the children would go to school for me.
I’m glad to be a plain citizen, if my children will be educated
Americans.'
People with eyes and hands like Mr. Rudinsky’s can say a great deal in a
few words. Miss Ralston felt as if she had known him all his life, and
followed his strivings in two worlds.
'I’m glad to know you, Mr. Rudinsky,' she said in a low voice. 'I wish
more of my pupils had fathers like David’s.'
Her host changed the subject very neatly.
'And I wish the school children had more teachers like you. David likes
you so much.'
'Oh, he liked you!' the wife confirmed. 'Please stay till he veks up.
He’ll be sorry to missed your vis_it_.'
While his wife moved quietly around the stove, making tea, Mr. Rudinsky
entertained their guest with anecdotes of David’s Hebrew-school days,
and of his vain efforts to get at secular books.
'He was just like me,' he said. 'He wanted to learn everything. I
couldn’t afford a private teacher, and they wouldn’t take him in the
public school. He learned Russian all alone, and if he got a book from
somewhere--a history or anything--he wouldn’t eat or drink till he read
it all.'
Mrs. Rudinsky often glanced at David’s teacher, to see how her husband’s
stories were impressing her. She was too shy with her English to say
more than was required of her as hostess, but her face, aglow with
motherly pride, showed how she participated in her husband’s enthusiasm.
'You see yourself, ma’am, what he is,' said David’s father, 'but what
could I make of him in Russia? I was happy when he got here, only it was
a little late. I wished he started in school younger.'
'He has time enough,' said Miss Ralston. 'He’ll get through grammar
school before he’s fourteen. He’s twelve now, isn’t he?'
'Yes, ma’am--no, ma’am! He’s really fourteen now, but I made him out
younger on purpose.'
Miss Ralston looked puzzled. Mr. Rudinsky explained.
'You see, ma’am, he was twelve years when he came, and I wanted he
should go to school as long as possible, so when I made his school
certificate, I said he was only ten. I have seven children, and David is
the oldest one, and I was afraid he’d have to go to work, if business
was bad, or if I was sick. The state is a good father to the children in
America, if the real fathers don’t mix in. Why should my David lose his
chance to get educated and be somebody, because I am a poor business
man, and have too many children? So I made out that he had to go to
school two years more.'
He narrated this anecdote in the same simple manner in which he had told
a dozen others. He seemed pleased to rehearse the little plot whereby he
had insured his boy’s education. As Miss Ralston did not make any
comment immediately, he went on, as if sure of her sympathy.
'I told you I got my citizen papers right away when I came to America. I
worked hard before I could bring my family--it took me four years to
save the money--and they found a very poor home when they got here, but
they were citizens right away. But it wouldn’t do them much good, if
they didn’t get educated. I found out all about the compulsory
education, and I said to myself that’s the policeman that will keep me
from robbing my David if I fail in business.'
He did not overestimate his visitor’s sympathy. Miss Ralston followed
his story with quick appreciation of his ideals and motives, but in her
ingenuous American mind one fact separated itself from the others:
namely, that Mr. Rudinsky had falsified his boy’s age, and had recorded
the falsehood in a public document. Her recognition of the fact carried
with it no criticism. She realized that Mr. Rudinsky’s conscience was
the product of an environment vastly different from hers. It was merely
that to her mind the element of deceit was something to be accounted
for, be it ever so charitably, whereas in Mr. Rudinsky’s mind it
evidently had no existence at all.
'So David is really fourteen years old?' she repeated incredulously.
'Why, he seems too little even for twelve! Does he know?--Of course he
would know! I wonder that he consented--'
She broke off, struck by a sudden thought. 'Consented to tell a lie' she
had meant to say, but the unspoken words diverted her mind from the
conversation. It came upon her in a flash that she had found the key to
David’s mystery. His note was in her pocketbook, but she knew every word
of it, and now everything was plain to her. The lie was this lie about
his age, and the person he wanted to shield was his father. And for that
he was suffering so!
She began to ask questions eagerly.
'Has David said anything about--about a little trouble he had in school
the day he became ill?'
Both parents showed concern.
'Trouble? what trouble?'
'Oh, it was hardly trouble--at least, I couldn’t tell myself.'
'David is so hard to understand sometimes,' his father said.
'Oh, I don’t think so!' the teacher cried. 'Not when you make friends
with him. He doesn’t say much, it’s true, but his heart is like a
crystal.'
'He’s too still,' the mother insisted, shaking her head. 'All the time
he’s sick, he don’t say anything, only when we ask him something. The
doctor thinks he’s worrying about something, but he don’t tell.'
The mother sighed, but Miss Ralston cut short her reflections.
'Mrs. Rudinsky--Mr. Rudinsky,' she began eagerly, '_I_ can tell you what
David’s troubled about.'
And she told them the story of her last talk with David, and finally
read them his note.
'And this lie,' she ended, 'you know what it is, don’t you? You’ve just
told me yourself, Mr. Rudinsky.'
She looked pleadingly at him, longing to have him understand David’s
mind as she understood it. But Mr. Rudinsky was very slow to grasp the
point.
'You mean--about the certificate? Because I made out that he was
younger?'
Miss Ralston nodded.
'You know David has such a sense of honor,' she explained, speaking
slowly, embarrassed by the effort of following Mr. Rudinsky’s train of
thought and her own at the same time. 'You know how he questions
everything--sooner or later he makes everything clear to himself--and
something must have started him thinking of this old matter lately--Why,
of course! I remember I asked him his age that day, when he tried on the
costume, and he answered as usual, and then, I suppose, he suddenly
_realized_ what he was saying. I don’t believe he ever _thought_ about
it since--since you arranged it so, and now, all of a sudden--'
She did not finish, because she saw that her listeners did not follow
her. Both their faces expressed pain and perplexity. After a long
silence, David’s father spoke.
'And what do _you_ think, ma’am?'
Miss Ralston was touched by the undertone of submission in his voice.
Her swift sympathy had taken her far into his thoughts. She recognized
in his story one of those ethical paradoxes which the helpless Jews of
the Pale, in their search for a weapon that their oppressors could not
confiscate, have evolved for their self-defence. She knew that to many
honest Jewish minds a lie was not a lie when told to an official; and
she divined that no ghost of a scruple had disturbed Mr. Rudinsky in his
sense of triumph over circumstances, when he invented the lie that was
to insure the education of his gifted child. With David, of course, the
same philosophy had been valid. His father’s plan for the protection of
his future, hingeing on a too familiar sophistry, had dropped innocuous
into his consciousness, until, in a moment of spiritual sensitiveness,
it took on the visage of sin.
'And what do _you_ think, ma’am?'
David’s father did not have to wait a moment for her answer, so readily
did her insight come to his defense. In a few eager sentences she made
him feel that she understood perfectly, and understood David perfectly.
'I respect you the more for that lie, Mr. Rudinsky. It was--a _noble_
lie!' There was the least tremor in her voice. 'And I love David for the
way _he_ sees it.'
Mr. Rudinsky got up and paced slowly across the room. Then he stopped
before Miss Ralston.
'You are very kind to talk like that, Miss Ralston,' he said, with
peculiar dignity. 'You see the whole thing. In the old country we had to
do such things so many times that we--got used to them. Here--here we
don’t have to.' His voice took on a musing quality. 'But we don’t see it
right away when we get here. I meant nothing, only just to keep my boy
in school. It was not to cheat anybody. The state is willing to educate
the children. I said to myself I will tie my own hands, so that I can’t
pull my child after me if I drown. I did want my David should have the
best chance in America.'
Miss Ralston was thrilled by the suppressed passion in his voice. She
held out her hand to him, saying again, in the low tones that come from
the heart, 'I am glad I know you, Mr. Rudinsky.'
There was unconscious chivalry in Mr. Rudinsky’s next words. Stepping to
his wife’s side, he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and said
quietly, 'My wife has been my helper in everything.'
Miss Ralston, as we know, was given to seeing things. She saw now, not a
poor immigrant couple in the first stage of American respectability,
which was all there was in the room to see, but a phantom procession of
men with the faces of prophets, muffled in striped praying-shawls, and
women radiant in the light of many candles, and youths and maidens with
smouldering depths in their eyes, and silent children who pushed away
joyous things for--for--
Dreams don’t use up much time. Mr. Rudinsky was not aware that there had
been a pause before he spoke again.
'You understand so well, Miss Ralston. But David'--he hesitated a
moment, then finished quickly. 'How can he respect me if he feels like
that?'
His wife spoke tremulously from her corner.
'That’s what I think.'
'Oh, don’t think that!' Miss Ralston cried. 'He does respect you--he
understands. Don’t you see what he says: _I can’t tell you--because you
would blame somebody who didn’t do wrong._ He doesn’t blame you. He only
blames himself. He’s afraid to tell me because he thinks _I_ can’t
understand.'
The teacher laughed a happy little laugh. In her eagerness to comfort
David’s parents, she said just the right things, and every word summed
up an instantaneous discovery. One of her useful gifts was the ability
to find out truths just when she desperately needed them. There are
people like that, and some of them are school-teachers hired by the
year. When David’s father cried, 'How can he respect me?' Miss Ralston’s
heart was frightened while it beat one beat. Only one. Then she knew all
David’s thoughts between the terrible, 'I have lied,' and the generous,
'But my father did no wrong.' She guessed what the struggle had cost to
reconcile the contradictions; she imagined his bewilderment as he tried
to rule himself by his new-found standards, while seeking excuses for
his father in the one he cast away from him as unworthy of an American.
Problems like David’s are not very common, but then Miss Ralston was
good at guessing.