A room high up in a swarming tenement had been the grave of

Produced by Phil McLaury, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

LITTLE CITIZENS

The Humours of School Life

BY MYRA KELLY

ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS

TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

A Little Matter of Real Estate

The Uses of Adversity

A Christmas Present for a Lady

Love Among the Blackboards

Morris and the Honourable Tim

When a Man's Widowed

H.R.H. The Prince of Hester Street

The Land Of Heart's Desire

A Passport to Paradise

The Touch of Nature

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Say, Teacher, I got something for you". _Frontispiece_

Isidore Belchatosky, the Adonis of the class

"I got two swollen legs over her"

"My dear little chap, you mustn't cry like that"

"Dismissed with the common herd at three o'clock"

"I must ask you to leave this room"

"Teacher, I tells you 'scuse"

"So you want lick, so you can lick"

"She's a beautiful yonge uptown lady, but easy scared. Oh, awful easy

scared!"

"Don't you dast to touch me," he yelled

"Look at your back!"

"You'll wish you minded your own ---- business before I get through

with you."

Morris Mogilewsky

"I washes me the face"

"Ain't you never comin' on the school for to see mine teacher?"

A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE

Four weeks of teaching in a lower East Side school had deprived

Constance Bailey of many of the "Ideals in Education" which, during

four years at college, she had trustingly acquired. But, despite many

discouragements, despite an unintelligible dialect and an autocratic

"Course of Study," she clung to an ambition to establish harmony in

her kingdom and to impress a high moral tone upon the fifty-eight

little children of Israel entrusted to her care. She was therefore

troubled and heavy of heart when it was borne in upon her that two of

her little flock--cousins to boot, and girls--had so far forgotten the

Golden Rule as to be "mad on theirselves und wouldn't to talk even,"

as that Bureau of Fashionable Intelligence, Sarah Schrodsky, duly

reported.

"Und Teacher," Sarah continued, "Eva Gonorowsky's mamma has a mad on

Sadie Gonorowsky's mamma, und her papa has a mad on her papa, und her

gran'ma has a mad on both of papas und both of mammas, und her gran'pa

has a mad somethin' fierce on both of uncles, und her auntie--"

Here Miss Bailey sent the too communicative Sarah to her place and

called the divided house of Gonorowsky to her desk for instant judgment.

And as she held forth she was delighted to see that her words were

falling upon good ground, for the dark and dainty features of her

hearers expressed a flattering degree of conviction and of humility. She

was admiring the wonderful lashes lying damp and dark on Eva's smooth

cheek when the beautiful eyes unclosed, gazed straight across the desk

at Sadie, and Eva took a flying leap into Teacher's lap to cling with

arms and knees and fingers to her chosen refuge.

"Oh, Teacher, Teacher," she wailed, "Sadie makes on me such a snoot

I got a scare over it."

Miss Bailey turned to the so lately placid face of Sadie in search of

the devastating "snoot," but met only a serene glance of conscious

guilelessness and the assurance:

"No ma'an, I don't makes no snoot on nobody. I get killed as anything

off of my mamma sooner I makes a snoot. It ain't polite." This with

a reassuring smile and direct and candid gaze.

"Teacher, yiss ma'an, she makes all times a snoot on me," cried the

now weeping Eva, "all times. She turns her nose around, und makes go

away her eyes, und comes her tongue out long. On'y I dassent to fight

mit her while I'm cousins mit her. Und over cousins you got all times

kind feelings."

"Well, Sadie," Teacher questioned, "what have you to say?"

The dark eyes met Teacher's with no shadow in their depths as Sadie

uttered her denial:

"I _never_ in my world done no snoot."

A shudder of admiring awe swept over the assembled class--followed by

a gasp of open contradiction as Sadie went on with her vindication.

For Sadie's snoots were the envy of all the class. Had not Morris

Mogilewsky paid three cents for lessons in the art, and, with the

accomplishment, frightened a baby into what its angry mother described

as "spine-yell convulsions"? And now Sadie was saying, "I _couldn't_ to

make no snoot. Never. But, Teacher, it's like this: Eva makes _me_ whole

bunches of trouble. Bertha Binderwitz und me is monitors in the yard

when the childrens comes back from dinner. So-o-oh, I says, 'front

dress,' like you says, so the childrens shall look on what head is in

front of them. On'y Eva she don't 'front dress' at all, but extra she

longs out her neck und rubs on me somethin' fierce--"

"It's a lie!" interrupted Eva gently. "I don't make nothing like that.

I stands by my line und Sadie she makes faces on me with her hand. It

ain't polite." This with plaintive self-righteousness. "No ma'an, it

_ain't_ polite--you makes snoots mit your hand like this." And as Eva

illustrated with outspread fingers and a pink thumb in juxtaposition to

a diminutive nose, Teacher, with uncertain gravity, was forced to admit

that snoots of that description are sanctioned by few books of

etiquette.

"Now, my dear little girls," said she, "this quarrelling must stop.

I want you to kiss each other as cousins should."

This suggestion was a distinct failure. Eva and Sadie, with much

fluttering of aprons and waving of curls, sought opposite corners of

the schoolroom, while up started Sarah Schrodsky with: "Teacher, they

couldn't to make no kissing. They're mad on theirselves 'cause their

mammas has a mad. Sadie's mamma says like this on Eva's mamma, 'Don't

you dast to talk to me--you lives by the fifth floor und your man is

a robber.' Und Eva's mamma says--"

When Teacher had managed to silence Sarah she led the weeping

Gonorowskys back to their places and the scholastic world wagged on

in outward tranquillity.

Hostilities were temporarily suspended some days later owing to the

illness of Sadie, by far the more aggressive of the opposing parties.

Eva led a placid life for three peaceful days, and then--as by law

prescribed and postal card invited--Sadie's mother came to explain

her daughter's absence. Large of person, bland of manner, in a heavy

black shawl and a heavier black wig, Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky stood

beaming and bobbing in the hall.

"I likes I should Sadie Gonorowsky's teacher see," she began, in the

peculiar English of the adult population of the East Side. Mrs.

Gonorowsky could neither use nor understand her young daughter's copious

invective. Upon being assured that the diminutive form before her was

indeed clothed with authority, she announced:

"Comes a letter I should by the school come. I was Sadie's mamma."

Here she drew from the inner recesses of the black shawl a bundle

which, being placed in a perpendicular position, proved to be the most

recent addition to the Gonorowsky household. She smoothed it with a

work-worn but tender hand, and repeated in a saddened voice: "Yes,

ma'am, I was her mamma und she lays now on the bed."

The increasing sadness of Mrs. Gonorowsky's announcement and its

sinister phraseology startled Teacher. "Not dead!" she cried. "Oh,

surely not dead!"

"Sure not," was the indignant response. "She's got such a sickness she

must lay on the bed, und comes the doctor. Sadie's papa holds much on

that child, Miss Teacher, und all times he has a worry over her. Me

too. She comes by the school tomorrow maybe, und I ask you by a favour

you should do me the kindness to look on her. So she feel again sick

she should better on the house come. She say, 'Oh, mamma, I got a

lovely teacher; I likes to look on her the while she has such a light

face.'"

Having thus diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with

great suavity asked, "Sadie is a good girl, hein?"

"Oh, yes, indeed."

"She is shmardt, hein? She don't make you no troubles?"

"Well," Miss Bailey answered, "she has rather bothered me lately by

quarrelling with her little cousin, Eva."

"So-o-oh!" exclaimed Sadie's parent ponderously. "So-o-oh, Eva

Gonorowsky makes you troubles; she is a bad girl--I tell Sadie--Sadie

is a good girl--I tell her she should make nothings with Eva soch a

bad girl. For what you not put her back by baby class? She is not

shmardt."

"Oh, but she is; she is a bright little thing," cried Teacher. "I

couldn't think of putting her back. She's a dear little girl and I

can't imagine why Sadie quarrels with her."

Mrs. Gonorowsky drew her ample form to a wonderful erectness, readjusted

her shawl, and answered with much stateliness:

"It was a trouble from off of real estate." With dignity and blandness

she proceeded to kiss Teacher's hand, and signified entire willingness

to entrust her precious Sadie to the care of so estimable a young

person, inquired solicitously if the work were not too much for so

small a lady, and cautioned the young person against rainy mornings.

Had she a mackintosh? Mr. Gonorowsky was selling them off that week.

Were her imperceptibles sufficiently warm? Mr. Gonorowsky, by a strange

chance, was absolutely giving away "fine all from wool" imperceptibles,

and the store was near. Mrs. Gonorowsky then withdrew, leaving a kindly

sentiment in Teacher's heart and an atmosphere of ironing-boards and

onions in the hall. On the following morning Sadie returned to her

"light-faced" teacher, and for one whole day hostilities were suspended.

But on the morning after this truce Eva was absent from her accustomed

place and Sadie blandly disclaimed all knowledge of her whereabouts.

After the noon recess a pathetic little figure wavered in the doorway

with one arm in a sling and one eye in a poultice. The remaining eye

was fixed in deep reproach on the face of Isidore Belchatosky, the

Adonis of the class, and the eye was the eye of Eva.

"Eva!" exclaimed Teacher, "oh, Eva, what can you have been doing?

What's the matter with your eye?"

"Isidore Belchatosky he goes und makes me this here shiner," said Eva's

accusing voice, as the eye under the poultice was uncovered for a

moment. It was indeed a "shiner" of aggravated aspect, and Isidore

cringed as it met his affrighted gaze. The sling and the bandages were

of gay chintz, showing forth the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and

their lurid colours made them horribly conspicuous. Friday scampered

across Eva's forehead, pursued by savages; and Crusoe, under his

enormous umbrella, nestled close to her heart.

"Surely Isidore would never hit a little girl?" Teacher remonstrated.

"Teacher, yiss ma'an; he makes me this here shiner. Sadie she goes und

tells him she kisses him a kiss so he makes me a shiner. He's lovin'

mit her und she's got kind feelin's by him, the while his papa's got

a candy cart. It's a stylish candy cart mit a bell und a horn. So-o-oh

I was yesterday on the store for buy my mamma some wurst, und I don't

make nothings mit nobody."

Here the poor, half-blind Eva, with her love and talent for pantomime,

took a gay little walk past Teacher's desk, with tossing head and

swinging skirts. Then with a cry she recoiled from the very memory of

her wrongs.

"Come Isidore! Und he hits me a hack on my leg so I couldn't to hold

it even. So I falls und I make me this here shiner. Und when my mamma

seen how comes such a bile on my bone she had a mad; she hollered

somethin' fierce."

One could well sympathize with the harassed Mrs. Nathan Gonorowsky.

"So-o-oh," continued Eva with melancholy enjoyment, "my mamma she puts

medsin at a rag und bangages up mine eye. Und now I ain't healthy."

"Sadie Gonorowsky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, in a voice which

lifted Sadie bodily from the place to which she had guiltily determined

to cling. And Sadie went, jaunty of air, but with shifting eyes.

"Isidore Belchatosky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, and Isidore

slunk after his divinity.

Teacher was savagely angry, but bylaws forbade corporal punishment,

and principles--and the Principal--forbade noisy upbraidings. And so

with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty,

she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when addressing

ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity.

"Sadie and Isidore, did you dare to interfere with the life, the liberty

and the happiness of our cherished young friend, Eva Gonorowsky? Did

you _dare_?"

"No ma'an," said Sadie with a sob.

"It's a lie!" said Isidore with a snuffle.

"Did you, Isidore, allow yourself to be tempted by beauty to such

inconceivable depravity as to blacken Eva's eye?"

"No ma'an. Self done it."

"Did you, Sadie, descend so low as to barter kisses with Isidore

Belchatosky?"

"No ma'an," this with much scorn. "I wouldn't to kiss him; he's a

scare-cat, und he tells out."

"What did he tell?" asked Teacher.

"He tells out how I say I kiss him a kiss so he make Eva a shiner. Und

I wouldn't to do it. Never. So he gave me five cents even, I wouldn't

to kiss no scare-cat."

"Well, then, why did you promise?"

"'Cause I couldn't to hit her mineself," said the doughty Sadie. She

was inches taller than her victim, and stout withal. "I couldn't,

'cause I ain't so healthy; I'm a nervous child, Teacher, und I was

day-before-yesterday sick on the bed."

Here the plaintive plaintiff showed a desire to testify once more, and

Teacher appointed three-thirty that afternoon as the hour most suitable

for a thorough examination of the case.

When the last arm had been twisted into the last sleeve, when the last

chin had been tied into the last shawl, when the last dispute as to

ownership in disreputable mittens had been settled, the great case of

Gonorowsky _vs._ Gonorowsky was called. On either side of the desk stood

a diminutive Gonorowsky; Eva still plaintive, and Sadie, redly, on the

defensive. Directly in front stood that labourer defrauded of his hire,

that tool in the hands of guileful woman--Isidore Belchatosky.

"Now," Teacher began, "I want to hear nothing but the truth. Isidore,

did you hit Eva?"

"Yiss ma'an."

"What for?"

"For a kiss."

"From whom?"

Here Sadie muttered a threat "to lay him down dead if he tells," and

Isidore required promise of safe conduct to his own block before he

consented to murmur:

"Sadie Gonorowsky."

"Did you get the kiss?"

"No ma'an."

"Do you know anything about this fight?"

"No ma'an."

"Well, then, you may go home now, and bring your mother with you

to-morrow morning."

Isidore left with a heavy heart and the enquiry was continued.

"What has Sadie been doing to you, Eva?" asked Teacher, and Eva, with

resigned mien, answered:

"All things," and then details followed. "She makes on me a snoot, she

pulls me on the bottom of my hair, she goes und takes her pencil und

gives me a stick in my face. When I was marchin' she extra takes her

shoes und steps at my legs; I got two swollen legs over her. Und

now"--here a sob--"you could to look on how she makes me biles und

shiners."

As Eva's voice droned out these many accusations, Sadie grew more

emphatic in her favourite repartee:

"It's a lie! It's a lie! It's a lie!"

"And now, Eva, will you tell me _why_ Sadie has been doing all these

naughty things?"

"Teacher, I don't know."

"Oh, yes; you do!"

"No ma'an; I don't. I could swear if I do. I kiss up to God." She

wafted a kiss towards the ceiling. "I got all times a kind feelin'

over Sadie, on'y she wouldn't to be glad on me. I seen yesterday her

little brother in the street mit Sadie und she make he shouldn't to

talk to me. My heart it breaks when she make like that; I'm got no

brother und no sister und I'm lovin' _so_ much mit my little cousin. She

goes und makes he should say nothin' und in _mine_ eyes stands tears. I

was sad."

[Illustration: ISIDORE BELCHATOSKY, THE ADONIS OF THE CLASS]

[Illustration: "I GOT TWO SWOLLEN LEGS OVER HER"]

"Well, dear, that's a shame," said Teacher, "and if you really don't

understand, go out into the assembly room and wait for me. Sadie is

going to tell me all about it."

Eva vanished, only to return with the lurid bandage in her hand and

the query:--"Can I make this wet?"

Upon receiving permission so to do she retired with her courteous

"Good-afternoon, Teacher," and her unchanged "Good-by, Sadie; I'm got

yet that kind feelin'." Truly the "pangs of disprized love" seemed

hers.

Several kinds of persuasion were practised in Room 18 during the next

five minutes. Then Sadie accepted defeat, faced the inevitable, and

began:

"It's like this: I dassent to be glad on Eva. So I want even, I dassent.

My mamma has the same mad, und my papa. My mamma she says like this:

So my papa gets sooner glad on my uncle she wouldn't to be wifes mit

him no more! _Such_ is the mad she has!"

"Why?"

"Well. Mine uncle he come out of Russia. From long he come when I was

a little bit of baby. Und he didn't to have no money for buy a house.

So my papa--he's awful kind--he gives him thousen dollers so he could

to buy. Und say, Teacher, what you think? he don't pays it back. It

_ain't_ polite you takes thousen dollers und don't pays it back."

Sadie's air, as she submitted this rule of social etiquette to Teacher's

wider knowledge, was a wondrous thing to see--so deferential was it

and yet so assured.

"So my papa he writes a letter on my uncle how he could to pay that

thousen dollers. _Goes_ months. _Comes_ no thousen dollers. So my papa

he goes on the lawyer und the lawyer he writes on my uncle a letter how

he should to pay. _Goes_ months. _Comes_ no thousen dollers." At each

repetition of these fateful words Sadie shook her serious head, pursed

up her rosy mouth, folded her hands resignedly, and sighed deeply.

Clearly this was a tale more than twice told, for the voice and manner

of Sadie were as the voice and manner of Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky, and

the recital was plagiarism--masterly and complete.

"And then?" prompted Teacher, lest the conversation languish.

"Well, my papa writes some more a letter on mine uncle. Oh-o-oh, a

awful bossy-und-mad letter. All the mad words what my papa knows he

writes on mine uncle. Und my mamma she sets by my papa's side und all

the mad words what my mamma knows she tells on my papa und he writes

them, too, on mine uncle. Mine uncle (that's Eva's papa) could to have

a fierce mad sooner he seen that bossy letter. But _goes_ two days.

_Comes_ no thousen dollers."

Here ensued a long and dramatic pause.

"Well, comes no thousen dollers. Comes nothings. On'y by night my mamma

she puts me on my bed; when comes my uncle! He comes und makes a

knopping on our door. I couldn't to tell even how he makes knopping.

I had such a scare I was green on the face, und my heart was going so

you could to hear. I'm a nervous child, Missis Bailey, und my face is

all times green sooner I gets a scare."

This last observation was a triumph of mimicry, and recalled Mrs.

Gonorowsky so vividly as to make her atmosphere of garlic and old

furniture quite perceptible. "So my mamma hears how my uncle knopps

und says 'Lemme in--lemme in.' She says ('scuse me, Teacher)--she says

'he must be' ('scuse me) 'drunk.' That's how my mamma says.

"So goes my papa by the door und says 'Who stands?' Und my uncle he

says 'Lemme in.' So-o-oh my papa he opens the door. Stands my uncle mit

cheeky looks und he showed a fist on my papa. My papa has a fierce

mad sooner he seen that fist--fists is awful cheeky when somebody

ain't paid. So my papa he says ('scuse me)--it's fierce how he says,

on'y he had a mad over that fist. He says ('scuse me), 'Go to hell!'

und my uncle, what ain't paid that thousen dollers, he says just like

that to my papa. He says too ('scuse me, Teacher), 'Go to hell!' So-o-oh

then my papa hits my uncle (that's Eva's papa), und how my papa is

strong I couldn't to tell even. He pulls every morning by the

extrasizer, und he's got such a muscles! So he hits my uncle (that's

Eva's papa), und my uncle he fall und he fall und he fall--we live by

the third floor, und he fall off of the third floor by the street--und

even in falling he says like that ('scuse me, Teacher), 'Go to hell!

go to hell! go to hell!' Ain't it somethin' fierce how he says? On all

the steps he says, 'Go to hell! go to hell! go to hell!'"

Miss Bailey had listened to authoritative lectures upon "The Place and

Influence of the Teacher in Community Life," and was debating as to

whether she had better inflict her visit of remonstrance upon Mr.

Lazarus Gonorowsky, of the powerful and cultivated muscle, or upon Mr.

Nathan Gonorowsky, of the deplorable manners, when this opportunity

to bring the higher standards of living into the home was taken from

her. The house of Gonorowsky, in jagged fragments, was tested as by

fire and came forth united.

Eva was absent one morning, and Sadie presented the explanation in a

rather dirty envelope:

Dear Miss:

Excuse pliss that Eva Gonarofsky comes not on the school. We was moving

und she couldn't to find her clothes. Yurs Resptphs,

Her elders,

Nathan Gonorowsky,

Becky Ganurwoski.

"Is Eva going far away?" asked Teacher. "Will she come to this school

any more?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an, sure she comes; she lives now by my house. My

uncle he lives by my house, too. Und my aunt."

"And you're not angry with your cousin anymore?"

"Teacher, no ma'an; I'm loving mit her. She's got on now all mine best

clothes the while her mamma buys her new. My aunt buys new clothes,

too. Und my uncle."

Sadie reported this shopping epidemic so cheerily that Teacher asked

with mild surprise:

"Where are all their old things?"

"Teacher, they're burned. Und my uncle's store und his _all_ of

goods, und his house und his three sewing machines. All, all burned!"

"Oh, dear me!" said Teacher. "Your poor uncle! Now he can never pay

that thousand dollars."

Sadie regarded Teacher with puzzled eyes.

"Sure he pays. He's now 'most as rich like Van'pilt. I guess he's got

a hundred dollers. He pays all right, all right, und my papa had a

party over him: he had such a awful glad!"

"Glad on your uncle?" cried Teacher, startled into colloquialisms.

"Yiss ma'an. Und my mamma has a glad on Eva's mamma, und my gran'ma

has a glad on both of papas und both of mammas, und my gran'pa has a

glad just like my gran'ma. All, all glad!"

As Teacher walked towards Grand Street that afternoon, she met a radiant

little girl with a small and most unsteady boy in tow. She recognized

Eva and surmised the cousin whose coldness had hurt her even unto

tears.

"Well, Eva, and what little boy is this?" she asked.

And the beaming and transformed Eva answered:

"It's my little cousin. He's lovin' mit me now. Sadie, too, is lovin'.

I take him out the while it's healthy he walks, on'y he ain't so big

und he falls. Say, Teacher, it's nice when he falls. I holds him in

my hands."

And fall he did. Eva picked him up, greatly to their mutual delight,

and explained:

"He's heavy, und my this here arm ain't yet so healthy, but I hold him

in my hands the while he's cousins mit me, und over cousins I'm got

all times that kind feelin'."

THE USES OF ADVERSITY

"I guess I don't need I should go on the school," announced Algernon

Yonowsky.

"I guess you do," said his sister.

"I guess I don't need I should go on the school, neither," remarked

Percival.

"You got to go," Leah informed her mutinous brothers. "I got a permit

for you from off the Principal; he's friends mit me the while I goes

on that school when I was little. You got to go on the school, und you

got to stay on the school. It's awful nice how you learn things there."

But the prospect did not appeal to the Yonowsky twins. It seemed to

forbode restraint and, during their six tempestuous years, they had

followed their own stubborn ways and had accepted neither advice nor

rebuke from any man. The evening of the day which had seen their

birth had left Leah motherless, and her father broken of heart and of

ambition. Since then Mr. Yonowsky had grown daily more silent and

morose, and Leah had been less and less able to cope with "them devil

boys."

A room high up in a swarming tenement had been the grave of her youth

and pleasure. She was as solitary there as she could have been in a

desert, for the neighbours who had known and assisted her in the first

years of her bereavement had died or moved to that Mecca of the New

World, Harlem. And their successors were not kindly disposed towards

a family comprising a silent man, a half-grown girl, and two twin

demons who made the block a terror to the nervous and the stairs a

menace to the unwary. No one came to gossip with Leah. She was too

young to listen understandingly to older women's adventures in sickness

or domestic infelicity, and too dispirited to make any show of interest

in the toilettes or "affaires" of the younger. For what were incompetent

doctors, habit-backed dresses, wavering husbands, or impetuous lovers

to Leah Yonowsky, who had assumed all the responsibilities of a woman's

life with none of its consolations?

Of course she had, to some extent, failed in the upbringing of her

brothers, but she had always looked forward hopefully to the time when

they should be old enough to be sent to school. There they should

learn, among much other lore, to live up to the names she had selected

for them out of the book of love and of adventure which she had been

reading at the time of their baptism. During all the years of her

enslavement she had been a patron of the nearest public library, and

it had been a source of great disappointment to her that Algernon and

Percival had made no least attempt to acquire the grace of speech and

manner which she had learned to associate with those lordly titles.

And now they were refusing even to approach the Pierian Spring! "I

guess I don't go," Algernon was persisting. "I guess I plays on the

street."

"Me, too," added Percival. "Patrick Brennan he goes on that school und

he gives me over yesterday, a bloody nose. I don' need I should go on

no school mit somebody what makes like that mit me."

But with the assistance of the neighbours, the policeman on the beat

and the truant officer, they were finally dragged to the halls of

learning and delivered into the hands of Miss Bailey, who installed

them in widely separated seats and seemed blandly unimpressed by their

evident determination to make things unpleasant in Room 18. She met

Leah's anticipatory apologies with:

"Of course they'll be good. I shall see that they behave. Yes, I shall

see, too, that Patrick Brennan does not fight with Percival. You musn't

worry about them any more, but I fear they have made worrying a habit

with you. If you will send them to school at a quarter to nine every

morning, and at ten minutes to one in the afternoon, I shall do the

rest."

And Leah went out into the sunshine free, for the first time in six

years. Free to wander through the streets, to do a little desultory

shopping, to go down to the river and to watch the workmen driving

rivets in the great new bridge. Never had she spent so pleasant a

morning, and her heart was full of gratitude and peace when she

reflected that hours such as these would henceforth be the order of

the day.

The advantages of a free education did not appeal to "them Yonowsky

devils." Leah was forced to drag her reluctant charges twice a day to

the school-house door--sometimes even up the stairs to Room 18--and

the reports with which Miss Bailey met her were not enthusiastic.

Still, Teacher admitted, too much was not to be expected from little

boys coming in contact, for the first time, with authority.

"Only send them regularly," she pleaded, "and perhaps they will learn

to be happy here." And Leah, in spite of countless obstacles and

difficulties, sent them.

They were unusually mutinous one morning, and their dressing had been

one long torment to Leah. They persisted in untying strings and

unbuttoning buttons. They shrieked, they lay upon the floor and kicked,

they spilled coffee upon their "jumpers," and systematically and

deliberately reduced their sister to the verge of distraction and of

tears. They were already late when she dragged them to the corner of

the school, and there they made their last stand by sitting stolidly

down upon the pavement.

Leah could not cope with their two rigid little bodies, and, through

welling tears of weariness and exasperation, she looked blankly up and

down the dingy street for succour. If only her ally, Mr. Brennan, the

policeman on the beat, would come! But Mr. Brennan was guarding a Grand

Street crossing until such time as the last straggling child should

have safely passed the dangers of the horse-cars, and nothing came in

answer to Leah's prayer but a push-cart laden with figs and dates and

propelled by a tall man, long-coated and fur-capped. His first glance

read the tableau, and in an instant he grasped Percival, shook him

into animation, threw him through the big door, and turned to reason

with Algernon. But that rebel had already seen the error of his ways

and was meekly ascending the steps and waving a resigned adieu to his

sister. The heavy door clanged. Leah raised grateful eyes to her knight,

and the thing was done. For the rest of that day Aaron Kastrinsky sold

dates and figs at a reckless discount and dreamed of the fair oval of

a girl's face framed in a shawl no more scarlet than her lips, while

Leah's heart sang of a youth in a fur cap and a long coat who had been

able to "boss them awful boys."

Daily thereafter did Aaron Kastrinsky establish his gay green push-cart

outside the school door set apart for the very little boys and drive

a half hour's bustling trade ere the children were all housed. And

daily two naughty small boys were convoyed to the door by a red-shawled,

dark-eyed sister. Very slowly greetings grew from shy glance to shy

smile, from swift drooping of the lashes to swift rise of colour, from

gentle sweep of eyes to sustained regard, from formal good-morning to

protracted chats. But before this happy stage was reached the twins

decided that they no longer required safe conduct to the fountain of

knowledge, and that Leah's attendance covered them with ridicule in

the eyes of more independent spirits. But she refused to relax her

vigilance, nay, rather she increased it; for she began to force her

mutinous brothers to the synagogue on Sabbath mornings. The twins soon

came to associate the vision of Aaron Kastrinsky with the idea of

restraint and of stern virtue, for on the way to the synagogue he

walked by Leah's side--looking strangely incomplete without his green

push-cart--and drove them by the sheer force of his will to walk

decorously in front. Decorously, too, he marched them back again, and

stood idly talking to Leah at the steps of her tenement while the twins

escaped to their enjoyments.

When waiting milk-cans were thrown into cellars, when the wheels of

momentarily deserted wagons were loosened, when pushcarts disappeared,

when children bent on shopping were waylaid and robbed, when cats were

tortured, horses' manes clipped, windows broken, shop-keepers enraged,

babies frightened, and pit-falls set upon the stairs, the cry was

always, "Them Yonowsky devils." Leah could do nothing with them. Mr.

Yonowsky made no effort to control them, and Aaron Kastrinsky was not

always there. Not half, not a quarter as often as he wished, for Leah

promptly turned away from all his attempts to make her understand how

greatly she would gain in peace and comfort if she would but marry

him. They would move to a larger flat and he would manage the boys.

But Leah's view of life and marriage was tinged with no glory of

romance. She had no illusions, no ignorances, and she was afraid, she

told her suitor, afraid.

"But of what?" asked the puzzled Aaron. "Thou canst not be afraid of

me. Thou knowest how dear thou art to me. What canst thou fear?"

"I'm afraid of being married," was her ultimatum. She confessed that

she loved no one else--she had never, poor child, known anyone else

to love; she admitted the allurements of the larger flat and the strong

hand always ready for the twins, was delighted to go with him to

lectures at the Educational Alliance when her father could be aroused

to responsible charge of the twins, rejoiced when he prospered in the

world and exchanged the push-cart for a permanent fruit-stand--she

even assisted at its decoration--but to marry him she was afraid.

Yes, she liked him; yes, she would walk with him--and the twins--along

Grand Street in the early evening. Yes, she would wear her red dress

since he admired it; but to marry him--ah, no! Please, no! she was

afraid of being married.

Aaron was by birth and in his own country one of the learned class,

and he promptly set about supplementing Leah's neglected education.

She had lived so solitary a life that her Russian remained pure and

soft and was quite distinct from the mixture of Yiddish, German, English,

and slang which her neighbours spoke. English, which she read

easily, she spoke rarely and haltingly, and Jewish in a prettily

pedantic manner, learned from her mother, whose father had been a

Rabbi. Aaron lent her books in these three languages, which straightway

carried her into strange and glorious worlds. Occasionally the twins

stole and sold the books, but their enlightenment remained. To

supplement the reading he took her to lectures and to night schools,

and thus one evening they listened to an illustrated "talk" on

"Contagion and Its Causes." There had been an epidemic of smallpox in

the quarter and Panic was abroad. Parents who spoke no English fought

wildly with ambulance surgeons who spoke no Jewish, and refused to

entrust the sufferers to the care of the Board of Health. Many

disturbances resulted and the authorities arranged that, in all the

missions, night schools, and settlements of the East Side, reassuring

lecturers should spread abroad the folly of resistance, the joys of

hospital life, the surety of recovery in the arms of the board, with

a few remarks upon the sources of contagion.

Leah and Aaron listened to one of the most calming of these orators.

The lecturer spoke with such feeling--and such stereopticon slides--that

smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, and diphtheria seemed the "open

sesame" to bliss unutterable, and the source of these talismans rather

to be sought for diligently than shunned. "Didst hear?" Leah asked

Aaron as they went home. "For a redness on the skin one may stay in

bed for a week and rest."

"Ay, but one is sick," said Aaron sagely.

"Not if one goes where the gentleman said. One lies in bed for a

week--three weeks--and there be ladies who wait on one, and one

rests--all days one rests. And there be no twins. Think of it, Aaron!

rest and no twins!"

A few days later she climbed home after a morning's shopping to find

Algernon, heavy of eye and red of face, crouched near the locked door

with a whimper in his voice and a card in his hand.

"I'm got somethin'," he announced, with the pride of the invalid.

"Where didst get it?" asked Leah, automatically; she was accustomed

to brazen admission of guilt.

"Off of a boy at school."

"Thou wilt steal once too often," his sister admonished him. "Go now,

confess to Miss Bailey, and return what thou hast taken."

"The boy has it too," retorted Algernon. "It's a sickness--a taking

sickness; und comes a man und gives me a card und says I should come

by my house; I'm sick."

Leah gazed on the card in despairing envy. She had hopefully searched

her person for rash or redness, thinking thereby to achieve a ticket

to that promised land where beautiful ladies--as the stereopticon had

shown--sat graciously waving fans beside a smooth, white bed whereon

one lay and rested: only rested: quiet day after quiet day. There had

been no twins in her imaginings, yet here was Algernon already set

upon the way; Algernon, who would be naughty in that blissful place,

and who might even "talk sassy" to the beautiful ladies. Slow tears

of disappointment grew under Leah's heavy lids and splashed upon the

coveted ticket. And the doctor from the Board of Health, come to verify

the more superficial examination of his colleague, misguidedly launched

forth upon a resume of the reassuring lectures.

"You mustn't cry," he remonstrated. "It's only measles and he won't

be very sick. Why, you might keep him here, and I could send you a

nurse to show you how to take care of him if it weren't for that butcher

shop on the ground floor. But he'll be all right. Don't cry."

In a short space the house of Yonowsky was bereft of its more noisy

son, and peace reigned. Percival went lonely and early to bed. Leah

sat late on the steps with Aaron, and, on the next morning, Percival

duplicated the redness, the diagnosis, and the departure of his brother,

and Leah came into her own.

Then were the days wondrous long. There was time for all the pleasures

from which she had been so long debarred. Time to read, time to sew,

time to pay and to receive shy, short morning calls, time to scrub and

polish until her room shone, time for experiments in cookery, time to

stretch her father's wages to undreamed-of lengths, even time so to

cheer and wheedle Mr. Yonowsky that she dared to ask his permission

to bring Aaron up to her spotless domain. And Aaron, with a thumping

of the hearts not due entirely to the height and steepness of the

stairs, came formally to call upon his young divinity. The visit was

a great success. Mr. Yonowsky blossomed under the sun of Aaron's

deference and learning into an expansiveness which amazed his daughter,

and the men discussed the law, the scriptures, the election, the Czar,

nihilism, socialism, the tariff, and the theatre. But here Mr. Yonowsky

lapsed into gloom. He had not visited a theatre for seven years--not

since his wife's death.

"And Miss Leah?" Aaron questioned.

"Never, oh, never!" she breathed resignedly, yet so longingly that

Aaron then and there arranged that he and she and Mr. Yonowsky should

visit the Thalia Theatre on the following night. And Leah, with the

glad and new assurance that the boys were safe, fell into happy

devisings of a suitable array. When young Kastrinsky left after formal

and prescribed adieus to his hostess, he dragged his host out to listen

to a campaign speech.

During the weeks that followed, even Mr. Yonowsky came to see the sweet

uses of the Board of Health and to ponder long and deeply upon the

nature of the "taking sickness." No longer forced to do perpetual,

though ineffective, sentinel duty, he gradually resumed his place in

the world of men and spent placid evenings at the synagogue, the

Educational Alliance, the theatre, and the East Side Democratic Union.

Leah bore him company at the theatre when she might, and Aaron followed

Leah until parental pride swelled high under Mr. Yonowsky's green

Prince Albert coat. For well he saw the looks of admiration which were

turned upon his daughter as she sat by his side and consumed cold pink

lemonade.

He received two of the roundabout proposals which etiquette demands,

and began to gather a dowry for Leah and to recall extraordinary

outstanding securities to that end. But, before these things were

accomplished, his sons and his troubles returned upon him. With renewed

energy, stimulated imagination, and enriched profanity, "them Yonowsky

devils" came home, and their reign of mischief set in afresh.

They had always been unruly; they were utterly unmanageable now. Daily

was Leah summoned to the big red school-house by the long-suffering

Miss Bailey, and nightly was Mr. Yonowsky forced to cancel engagements

at club or synagogue and to stay at home to "explanation them boys"

to outraged neighbours.

Aaron could still control them, but he was never brought upstairs now.

How could Leah expect him to enjoy conversations carried on amid the

yells of Algernon and Percival in freedom, or their shrieks in durance?

The twins came home one noontime full of gossip and excitement. They

clamoured over their cabbage soup that a classmate of theirs, one

Isidore Belchatosky, had "a sickness--a taking sickness, what he took

from off his sister Sadie."

"Is it a bad sickness?" asked the father.

"Somethin' fierce!" Percival assured him. "Pimples stands on his face,

und he _says_ he's got 'em everywheres, but I guess maybe he lies.

He says it's a chicken sickness what he has. Mit pimples everywheres!"

"You don't know no names from sicknesses," Algernon broke in

contemptuously. "It ain't the chicken sickness. It's the chicken puffs."

"Where is his house?" asked Leah eagerly. And she joyously despatched

the twins with kind inquiries and proffers to sit with the sufferer;

for had not the prophesying gentleman explained that there was no surer

way of attaining to hospital tickets than by speech and contact with

one who had already "arrived"? And Algernon and Percival, spurred on

by the allurement of the "pimples everywheres," pressed past all

barriers and outposts until they feasted their eyes upon the neatly

spotted Izzie, who proudly proved his boast of the "everywheres" and

the exceeding puffiness of the chicken puffs.

Two weeks later the little emissaries of love were in sorry case. The

"pimples everywheres" appeared, the ambulance reappeared, the twins

disappeared. The cleaning and polishing were resumed, Aaron invited

to supper, Mr. Yonowsky pledged to deliver a lecture on "The Southern

Negro and the Ballot," and a stew of the strongest elements set to

simmer on the stove.

Leah had learned the path to freedom and trod it with a light heart.

Algernon and Percival enjoyed a long succession of diseases, contagious

and infectious, and each attack meant a holiday of varying but always

of considerable length. Under ordinary conditions Leah might have been

forced to nurse her brothers through their less serious disorders, but

there was a butcher shop on the ground floor of the Yonowsky tenement,

and the by-laws of the Board of Health decreed that, such being the

case, the children should be removed for nearly all the ills to which

young and ill-nourished flesh is heir.

"Them Yonowsky devils" became only visitors to their native block, but

since they returned after each retirement more unruly and outrageous,

they were not deeply mourned. Only the butcher objected, because his

store was occasionally quarantined when Leah had achieved some very

virulent excuse for summoning the ambulance and shipping her

responsibilities. Mr. Yonowsky was puzzled but grateful, and Aaron was

grateful too.

Month after month went by and the twins had exhausted the lists of the

lecturer and had enjoyed several other ailments, when Leah and her

father went to bring them home from their typhoid-fever holiday.

"You've been having a hard time with these boys," the man at the desk

said kindly. "The worst luck I ever knew in the many years I've been

here. But they're all right now. They've had everything on the list

except water on the brain and elephantiasis, and they can't get them."

"But some what they had they could some more get," Leah suggested in

the English she so rarely used.

"I think not," the official answered cheeringly. "They hardly ever do.

No, I guess you'll be able to keep them at home now. Good luck to you!"

But it was bad luck, the worst of luck. Mr. Yonowsky's public spirit

died within his breast; Leah's coquetry vanished before a future

unrelieved by visits from the black and friendly ambulance, and when

Aaron climbed the well-known stairs that evening he heard, while he

was yet two floors short of his destination, the shrieks of the twins,

the smashing of crockery, and the grumbling of the neighbours. Suddenly

a little figure darted upon him and Leah was in his arms.

"Aaron," she sobbed. "Oh, Aaron, mine heart it breaks. There ain't no

more taking sicknesses in all the world. So says the gentleman."

"My golden one," said Aaron, who was a bit of a philosopher; "all good

things come to an end except only Love. And the twins have had taking

sicknesses in great and unheard-of numbers."

"But now they are more than ever bad. I can do nothing with them and

I am afraid of them. In hospitals, where one is very happy, one grows

very big, and the twins are no longer little boys."

"If you marry me--" Aaron began.

"You will love me always?"

"Yea, mine gold."

"And for me you will boss them twins?"

"Yea, verily, for thee I will boss the twins."

And the betrothal of Leah Yonowsky to Aaron Kastrinsky was signed and

sealed immediately.

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR A LADY

It was the week before Christmas, and the First-Reader Class had,

almost to a man, decided on the gifts to be lavished on "Teacher." She

was quite unprepared for any such observance on the part of her small

adherents, for her first study of the roll-book had shown her that its

numerous Jacobs, Isidores, and Rachels belonged to a class to which

Christmas Day was much as other days. And so she went serenely on her

way, all unconscious of the swift and strict relation between her

manner and her chances. She was, for instance, the only person in the

room who did not know that her criticism of Isidore Belchatosky's hands

and face cost her a tall "three for ten cents" candlestick and a plump

box of candy.

But Morris Mogilewsky, whose love for Teacher was far greater than the

combined loves of all the other children, had as yet no present to

bestow. That his "kind feeling" should be without proof when the lesser

loves of Isidore Wishnewsky, Sadie Gonorowsky, and Bertha Binderwitz

were taking the tangible but surprising forms which were daily exhibited

to his confidential gaze, was more than he could bear. The knowledge

saddened all his hours and was the more maddening because it could in

no wise be shared by Teacher, who noticed his altered bearing and tried

with all sorts of artful beguilements to make him happy and at ease.

But her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his love.

And he loved her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes

had clung for a breath's space to her "like man's shoes" and had then

crept timidly upward past a black skirt, a "from silk" apron, a

red "jumper," and "from gold" chain to her "light face," she had been

mistress of his heart of hearts. That was more than three months ago.

And well he remembered the day!

His mother had washed him horribly, and had taken him into the big,

red school-house, so familiar from the outside, but so full of unknown

terrors within. After his dusty little shoes had stumbled over the

threshold he had passed from ordeal to ordeal until at last he was

torn in mute and white-faced despair from his mother's skirts.

He was then dragged through long halls and up tall stairs by a large

boy, who spoke to him disdainfully as "greenie," and cautioned him as

to the laying down softly and taking up gently of those poor dusty

shoes, so that his spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all

unstrung when he was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and

of children who laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine

smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned

to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy gone, and despair took

him for its own.

[Illustration: "MY POOR LITTLE CHAP, YOU MUSTN'T CRY LIKE, THAT"]

[Illustration: DISMISSED WITH THE COMMON HERD AT THREE O'CLOCK]

Down upon the floor he dropped, and wailed, and wept, and kicked. It

was then that he heard, for the first time the voice which now he

loved. A hand was forced between his aching body and the floor, and

the voice said: "Why, my dear little chap, you mustn't cry like that.

What's the matter?"

The hand was gentle and the question kind, and these, combined with

a faint perfume suggestive of drug stores and barber shops--but nicer

than either--made him uncover his hot little face. Kneeling beside him

was a lady, and he forced his eyes to that perilous ascent; from shoes

to skirt, from skirt to jumper, from jumper to face, they trailed in

dread uncertainty, but at the face they stopped. They had found--rest.

Morris allowed himself to be gathered into the lady's arms and held

upon her knee, and when his sobs no longer rent the very foundations

of his pink and wide-spread tie, he answered her question in a voice

as soft as his eyes, and as gently sad.

"I ain't so big, und I don't know where is my mamma."

So, having cast his troubles on the shoulders of the lady, he had added

his throbbing head to the burden, and from that safe retreat had enjoyed

his first day at school immensely.