tunnels where feet and voices rang with ghostly boomings most pleasant
to the ear; over bridges whence they saw--in partial proof of Isaac
Borrachsohn's veracity--"mans und ladies ridin'." Of a surety they
rode nothing more exciting than horses, but that was, to East Side
eyes, an unaccustomed sight, and Eva opined that it was owing, probably,
to the shortness of their watch that they saw no lions and tigers
similarly amiable. The cows, too, seemed far to seek, but the trees
and grass and flowers were everywhere. Through long stretches of "for
sure country" they picked their way, until they came, hot but happy,
to a green and shady summer house on a hill. There they halted to rest,
and there Ignatius Aloysius, with questionable delicacy, began to
insist once more upon the full measure of his bond.
"We ain't seen the rubber-neck-boat-birds," he complained. "Und we
ain't had no rides on nothings."
"You don't know what is polite," cried Eva, greatly shocked at his
carping spirit in the presence of a hard-worked host. "You could to
think shame over how you says somethings like that on a party."
"This ain't no party," Ignatius Aloysius retorted. "It's a 'scursion.
To a party somebody _gives_ you what you should eat; to a 'scursion
you _brings_ it. Und, anyway, we ain't had no rides."
"But we heard a holler," the guest of honour reminded him. "We heard
a fierce, big holler from a lion. I don't know do I need a ride on
something what hollers. I could to have a fraid maybe."
"Ye wouldn't be afraid on the boats when I hold yer hand, would ye?"
Patrick anxiously inquired, and Eva shyly admitted that, thus supported,
she might be undismayed. To work off the pride and joy caused by this
avowal, Patrick mounted the broad seat extending all around the
summer-house and began to walk clatteringly upon it. The other pilgrims
followed suit and the whole party stamped and danced with infinite
enjoyment. Suddenly the leader halted with a cry of triumph and pointed
grandly out through one of the wistaria-hung openings. Not De Soto
upon the banks of the Mississippi nor Balboa above the Pacific could
have felt more victorious than Patrick did as he announced:
"There's the water-lake!"
His followers closed in upon him so impetuously that he was borne down
under their charge and fell ignominiously out upon the grass. But he
was hardly missed; he had served his purpose. For there, beyond the
rocks and lawns and red japonicas, lay the blue and shining water-lake
in its confining banks of green. And upon its softly quivering surface
floated the rubber-neck-boat-birds, white and sweetly silent instead
of red and screaming--and the superlative length and arched beauty of
their necks surpassed the wildest of Ikey Borrachsohn's descriptions.
And relying upon the strength and politeness of these wondrous birds
there were indeed "mans und ladies und boys und little girls" embarking,
disembarking, and placidly weaving in and out and round about through
scenes of hidden but undoubted beauty.
Over rocks and grass the army charged towards bliss unutterable,
strewing their path with overturned and howling babies of prosperity
who, clumsy from many nurses and much pampering, failed to make way.
Past all barriers, accident or official, they pressed, nor halted to
draw rein or breath until they were established, beatified, upon the
waiting swan-boat.
Three minutes later they were standing outside the railings of the
landing and regarding, through welling tears, the placid lake, the
sunny slopes of grass and tree, the brilliant sky and the gleaming
rubber-neck-boat-bird which, as Ikey described, "made go its legs,"
but only, as he had omitted to mention, for money. So there they stood,
seven sorrowful little figures engulfed in the rayless despair of
childhood and the bitterness of poverty. For these were the children
of the poor, and full well they knew that money was not to be diverted
from its mission: that car-fare could not be squandered on bliss.
Becky's woe was so strong and loud that the bitter wailings of the
others served merely as its background. But Patrick cared not at all
for the general despair. His remorseful eyes never strayed from the
bowed figure of Eva Gonorowsky, for whose pleasure and honour he had
striven so long and vainly. Slowly she conquered her sobs, slowly she
raised her daisy-decked head, deliberately she blew her small pink
nose, softly she approached her conquered knight, gently and all
untruthfully she faltered, with yearning eyes on the majestic swans:
"Don't you have no sad feelings, Patrick. I ain't got none. Ain't I
told you from long, how I don't need no rubber-neck-boat-bird rides?
I don't need 'em! I don't need em! I"--with a sob of passionate
longing--"I'm got all times a awful scare over 'em. Let's go home,
Patrick. Becky needs she should see her mamma, und I guess I needs my
mamma too."
A PASSPORT TO PARADISE
School had been for some months in progress when the footsteps of Yetta
Aaronsohn were turned, by a long-suffering Truant Officer, in the
direction of Room 18. During her first few hours among its pictures,
plants and children, she sadly realized the great and many barriers
which separated her from Eva Gonorowsky, Morris Mogilewsky, Patrick
Brennan, and other favoured spirits who basked in the sunshine of
Teacher's regard. For, with a face too white, hair too straight, dresses
too short and legs too long one runs a poor chance in rivalry with
more blessed and bedizened children.
Miss Bailey had already appointed her monitors, organized her kingdom,
and was so hedged about with servitors and assistants that her wishes
were acted upon before a stranger could surmise them, and her Cabinet,
from the Leader of the Line to the Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl,
presented an impregnable front to the aspiring public.
During recess time Yetta learned that Teacher was further entrenched
in groundless prejudice. Sarah Schrodsky, class bureau of etiquette
and of _savoir faire_, warned the new-comer:
"Sooner you comes on the school mit dirt on the face she wouldn't to
have no kind feelin's over you. She don't lets you should set by her
side: she don't lets you should be monitors off of somethings: she
don't lets you should make an'thing what is nice fer you."
Another peculiarity was announced by Sadie Gonorowsky: "So you comes
late on the school, she has fierce mads. Patrick Brennan, he comes
late over yesterday on the morning und she don't lets he should march
first on the line."
"Did she holler?" asked Yetta, in an awed whisper.
"No. She don't need she should holler when she has mads. She looks on
you mit long-mad-proud-looks und you don't needs no hollers. She could
to have mads 'out sayin' nothings und you could to have a scare over
it. It's fierce. Und extra she goes und tells it out to Patrick's
papa--he's the cop mit buttons what stands by the corner--how Patrick
comes late und Patrick gets killed as anything over it."
"On'y Patrick ain't cried," interrupted Eva Gonorowsky. She had heard
her hero's name and sprang to his defence. "Patrick tells me how his
papa hits him awful hacks mit a club. I don't know what is a club,
on'y Patrick says it makes him biles on all his bones."
"You gets biles on your bones from off of cops sooner you comes late
on the school!" gasped Yetta. "Nobody ain't tell me nothings over that.
I don't know, neither, what is clubs--"
"I know what they are," the more learned Sarah Schrodsky began. "It's
a house mit man's faces in the windows. It's full from mans by night.
Ikey Borrachsohn's papa's got one mit music inside."
"I don't likes it! I have a fraid over it!" wailed Yetta. "I don't
know does my mamma likes I should come somewheres where cops mit buttons
makes like that mit me. I don't know is it healthy fer me."
"Sooner you don't comes late on the school nobody makes like that mit
you," Eva reminded the panic-stricken new-comer, and for the first
three days of her school life Yetta was very early and very dirty.
Miss Bailey, with gentle tact, delivered little lectures upon the use
and beauty of soap and water which Eva Gonorowsky applied to and
discussed with the new-comer.
"Miss Bailey is a awful nice Teacher," she began one afternoon. "I
never in my world seen no nicer teacher. On'y she's fancy."
"I seen how she's fancy," Yetta agreed. "She's got her hair done fancy
mit combs und her waist is from fancy goods."
"Yes, she's fancy," Eva continued. "She likes you should put you on
awful clean. Say, what you think, she sends a boy home once--mit notes
even--the while he puts him on mit dirty sweaters. She says like this:
'Sweaters what you wears by nights und by days ain't stylish fer
school.' Und I guess she knows what is stylish. I ain't never in my
world seen no stylisher teacher."
"I don't know be buttoned-in-back dresses the style this year," ventured
Yetta. The same misgiving had visited Eva, but she thrust it loyally
from her.
"They're the latest," she declared.
"It's good they're the style," sighed Yetta. "Mine dress is a
buttoned-in-back-dress, too. On'y I loses me the buttons from off of
it. I guess maybe I sews 'em on again. Teacher could to have, maybe,
kind feelings, sooner she sees how I puts me on mit buttons on mine
back und--"
"Sure could she!" interrupted the sustaining Eva.
"Could she have kind feelings sooner I puts me on clean mit buttons
on mine back und makes all things what is nice fer me? Oh, Eva, could
she have feelin's over me?"
"Sure could she," cried Eva. "Sooner you makes all them things she
could to make you, maybe, monitors off of somethings."
"Be you monitors?" demanded Yetta in sudden awe.
"Off of pencils. Ain't you seen how I gives 'em out and takes 'em up?
She gives me too a piece of paper mit writings on it. Sooner I shows
it on the big boys what stands by the door in the yard, sooner they
lets me I should come right up by Teacher's room. You could to look
on it." And, after unfolding countless layers of paper and of
cheese-cloth handkerchief, she exhibited her talisman. It was an
ordinary visiting card with a line of writing under its neatly engraved
"Miss Constance Bailey," and Yetta regarded it with envying eyes.
"What does it says?" she asked.
"Well," admitted Eva with reluctant candour, "I couldn't to read them
words but I guess it says I should come all places what I wants the
while I'm good girls."
"Can you go all places where you wants mit it?"
"Sure could you."
"On theaytres?"
"Sure."
"On the Central Park?"
"Sure."
"On the country? Oh I guess you couldn't to go on the country mit it?"
"Sure could you. All places what you wants you could to go sooner
Missis Bailey writes on papers how you is good girls."
"Oh, how I likes she should write like that fer me. Oh, how I likes
I should be monitors off of somethings."
"I tell you what you want to do: wash your hands!" cried Eva, with
sudden inspiration. "She's crazy for what is clean. You wash your hands
und your face. She could to have feelin's."
For some mornings thereafter Yetta was clean--and late. Miss Bailey
overlooked the cleanliness, but noted the tardiness, and treated the
offender with some of "the mads 'out sayin' nothings" which Sadie had
predicted. Still, the "cop mit buttons und clubs" did not appear,
though Yetta lived in constant terror and expected that every opening
of the door would disclose that dread avenger.
On the fourth morning of her ablutions Yetta reached Room 18 while a
reading lesson was absorbing Teacher's attention:
"Powers above!" ejaculated Patrick Brennan, with all the ostentatious
virtue of the recently reformed, "here's that new kid late again!"
The new kid, in copious tears, encountered one of the
"long-mad-proud-looks" and cringed.
"Why are you late?" demanded Miss Bailey.
"I washes me the face," whimpered the culprit, and the eyes with which
she regarded Eva Gonorowsky added tearfully: "Villain behold your
work!"
[Illustration: "I WASHES ME THE FACE"]
[Illustration: AIN'T YOU NEVER COMIN' ON THE SCHOOL FOR TO SEE MINE
TEACHER?]
"So I see, but that is no reason for being late. You have been late
twice a day, morning and afternoon, for the last three days and your
only excuse has been that you were washing your face. Which is no
excuse at all."
"I tells you 'scuse," pleaded Yetta. "I tells you 'scuse."
"Very well, I'll forgive you to-day. I suppose I must tolerate you."
"No-o-oh ma'an, Teacher, Missis Bailey, don't you do it," screamed
Yetta in sudden terror. "I'd have a awful frightened over it. I swear,
I kiss up to God, I wouldn't never no more come late on the school.
I don't needs nobody should make nothings like that mit me."
"Oh, it's not so bad," Miss Bailey reassured her. "And you must expect
something to happen if you _will_ come late to school for no reason at
all."
And Yetta was too disturbed by the danger so narrowly escaped to tell
this charming but most strangely ignorant young person that the washing
of a face was a most time-consuming process. Yetta's one-roomed home
was on the top floor, the sixth, and the only water supply was in the
yard. Since the day her father had packed "assorted notions" into a
black and shiny box and had set out to seek his very elusive fortunes
in the country, Yetta had toiled three times a morning with a tin pail
full of water. This formed the family's daily store and there was no
surplus to be squandered. But to win Teacher's commendation she had
bent her tired energies to another trip and, behold, her reward was
a scolding!
Eva Gonorowsky was terribly distressed, and the plaintive sobs which,
from time to time, rent the bosom of Yetta's dingy plaid dress were
as so many blows upon her adviser's bruised conscience. Desperately
she cast about for some device by which Teacher's favour might be
reclaimed and all jubilantly she imparted it to Yetta.
"Say," she whispered, "I tell you what you want to do. You leave your
mamma wash your dress."
"I don't know would she like it. I washes me the face fer her und she
has a mad on me."
"She'd like it, all right, all right; ain't I tell you how she is crazy
fer what is clean? You get your dress washed and it will look awful
diff'rent. I done it und she had a glad."
Now a mamma who supports a family by the making of buttonholes, for
one hundred of which she receives nine cents, has little time for
washing, and Yetta determined, unaided and unadvised, to be her own
laundress. She made endless trips with her tin-pail from the sixth
floor to the yard and back again, she begged a piece of soap from the
friendly "janitor lady" and set valiantly to work. And Eva's prophecy
was fulfilled. The dress looked "awful diff'rent" when it had dried
to half its already scant proportions. From various sources Yetta
collected six buttons of widely dissimilar design and colour and, with
great difficulty since her hands were puffed and clumsy from long
immersion in strong suds, she affixed them to the back of the dress
and fell into her corner of the family couch to dream of Miss Bailey's
surprise and joy when the blended plaid should be revealed unto her.
Surely, if there were any gratitude in the hearts of teachers, Yetta
should be, ere the sinking of another sun, "monitors off of somethings."
That Teacher was surprised, no one who saw the glance of puzzled inquiry
with which she greeted the entrance of the transformed Yetta, could
doubt. That she had a glad, Yetta, who saw the stare replaced by a
smile of quick recognition, was proudly assured. Eva Gonorowsky shone
triumphant.
"Ain't I tell you?" she whispered jubilantly as she made room upon her
little bench and drew Yetta down beside her. "Ain't I tell you how
she's crazy fer what is clean? Und I ain't never seen nothings what
is clean like you be. You smells off of soap even."
It was not surprising, for Yetta had omitted the rinsing which some
laundresses advise. She had wasted none of the janitor lady's gift.
It was all in the meshes of the flannel dress to which it lent, in
addition to its reassuring perfume, a smooth damp slipperiness most
pleasing to the touch.
The athletic members of the First Reader Class were made familiar with
this quality before the day was over, for, at the slightest exertion
of its wearer, the rain-bow dress sprang, chrysalis-like, widely open
up the back. Then were the combined efforts of two of the strongest
members of the class required to drag the edges into apposition while
Eva guided the buttons to their respective holes and Yetta "let go of
her breath" with an energy which defeated its purpose.
These interruptions of the class routine were so inevitable a
consequence of Swedish exercises and gymnastics that Miss Bailey was
forced to sacrifice Yetta's physical development to the general
discipline and to anchor her in quiet waters during the frequent periods
of drill. When she had been in time she sat at Teacher's desk in a
glow of love and pride. When she had been late she stood in a corner
near the book-case and repented of her sin. And, despite all her
exertions and Eva's promptings, she was still occasionally late.
Miss Bailey was seriously at a loss for some method of dealing with
a child so wistful of eyes and so damaging of habits. A teacher's
standing on the books of the Board of Education depends to a degree
upon the punctuality and regularity of attendance to which she can
inspire her class, and Yetta was reducing the average to untold depths.
"What happened to-day?" Teacher asked one morning for the third time
in one week, and through Yetta's noisy repentance she heard hints of
"store" and "mamma."
"Your mamma sent you to the store?" she interpreted and Yetta nodded
dolefully.
"And did you give her my message about that last week? Did you tell
her that she _must_ send you to school before nine o'clock?" Again
Yetta nodded, silent and resigned, evidently a creature bound upon the
wheel, heart broken but uncomplaining.
"Well, then," began Miss Bailey, struggling to maintain her just
resentment, "you can tell her now that I want to see her. Ask her to
come to school to-morrow morning."
"Teacher, she couldn't. She ain't got time. Und she don't know where
is the school neither."
"That's nonsense. You live only two blocks away. She sees it every
time she passes the corner."
"She don't never pass no corner. She don't never come on the street.
My mamma ain't got time. She sews."
"But she can't sew always. She goes out, doesn't she, to do shopping
and to see her friends?"
"She ain't got friends. She ain't got time she should have 'em. She
sews all times. Sooner I lays me und the babies on the bed by night
my mamma sews. Und sooner I stands up in mornings my mamma sews. All,
_all_, ALL times she sews."
"And where is your father? Doesn't he help?"
"Teacher, he's on the country. He is pedlar mans. He walk und he walk
und he walk mit all things what is stylish in a box. On'y nobody wants
they should buy somethings from off of my papa. No ma'an, Missis Bailey,
that ain't how they makes mit my poor papa. They goes und makes dogs
should bite him on the legs. That's how he tells in a letter what he
writes on my mamma. Comes no money in the letter und me und my mamma
we got it pretty hard. We got three babies."
"I'm going home with you this afternoon," announced Miss Bailey in a
voice which suggested neither mads nor clubs nor violence.
After that visit things were a shade more bearable in the home of the
absent pedlar, and one-half of Yetta's ambition was achieved. Teacher
had a glad! There was a gentleness almost apologetic in her attitude
and the hour after which an arrival should be met with a
long-proud-mad-look was indefinitely postponed. And, friendly relations
being established, Yetta's craving for monitorship grew with the passing
days.
When she expressed to Teacher her willingness to hold office she was
met with unsatisfying but baffling generalities.
"But surely I shall let you be monitor some day. I have monitors for
nearly everything under the sun, now, but perhaps I shall think of
something for you."
"I likes," faltered Yetta; "I likes I should be monitor off of flowers."
"But Nathan Spiderwitz takes care of the window boxes. He won't let
even me touch them. Think what he would do to you."
"Then I likes I should be monitors to set by your place when you goes
by the Principal's office."
"But Patrick Brennan always takes care of the children when I am not
in the room."
"He marches first by the line too. He's two monitors."
"He truly is," agreed Miss Bailey. "Well, I shall let you try that
some day."
It was a most disastrous experiment. The First Reader Class, serenely
good under the eye of Patrick Brennan, who wore one of the discarded
brass buttons of his sire pinned to the breast of his shirt-waist,
found nothing to fear or to obey in his supplanter, and Miss Bailey
returned to her kingdom to find it in an uproar and her regent in
tears.
"I don't likes it. I don't likes it," Yetta wailed. "All the boys shows
a fist on me. All the girls makes a snoot on me. All the childrens say
cheek on me. I don't likes it. I don't likes it."
"Then you sha'n't do it again," Teacher comforted her. "You needn't
be a monitor if you don't wish."
"But I likes I shall be monitors. On'y not that kind from monitors."
"If you can think of something you would enjoy I shall let you try
again. But it must be something, dear, that no one is doing for me."
But Yetta could think of nothing until one afternoon when she was
sitting at Teacher's desk during a Swedish drill. All about her were
Teacher's things. Her large green blotter, her "from gold" inkstand
and pens, her books where Fairies lived. Miss Bailey was standing
directly in front of the desk and encouraging the First Reader Class--by
command and example--to strenuous waving of arms and bending of bodies.
"Forward bend!" commanded, and bent, Miss Bailey and her
buttoned-in-back-waist followed the example of less fashionable models,
shed its pearl buttons in a shower upon the smooth blotter and gave
Yetta the inspiration for which she had been waiting. She gathered the
buttons, extracted numerous pins from posts of trust in her attire,
and when Miss Bailey had returned to her chair, gently set about
repairing the breach.
"What is it?" asked Miss Bailey. Yetta, her mouth full of pins,
exhibited the buttons.
"Dear me! All those off!" exclaimed Teacher. "It was good of you to
arrange it for me. And now will you watch it? You'll tell me if it
should open again?"
Yetta had then disposed the pins to the best advantage and was free
to voice her triumphant:
"Oh, I knows _now_ how I wants I should be monitors! Teacher,
mine dear Teacher, could I be monitors off of the back of your dress?"
"But surely, you may," laughed Teacher, and Yetta entered straightway
into the heaven of fulfilled desire.
None of Eva's descriptions of the joys of monitorship had done justice
to the glad reality. After common mortals had gone home at three
o'clock, Room 18 was transformed into a land where only monitors and
love abounded. And the new monitor was welcomed by the existing staff,
for she had supplanted no one, and was so palpitatingly happy that
Patrick Brennan forgave her earlier usurpation of his office and Nathan
Spiderwitz bestowed upon her the freedom of the window boxes.
"Ever when you likes you should have a crawley bug from off of the
flowers; you tell me und I'll catch one fer you. I got lots. I don't
need 'em all."
"I likes I shall have one now," ventured Yetta, and Nathan ensnared
one and put it in her hand where it "crawlied" most pleasingly until
Morris Mogilewsky begged it for his Gold-Fish in their gleaming "fish
theaytre." Then Eva shared with her friend and protege the delight of
sharpening countless blunted and bitten pencils upon a piece of
sand-paper.
"Say," whispered Yetta as they worked busily and dirtily, "Say, I'm
monitors now. On'y I ain't got no papers."
"You ask her. She'll give you one."
"I'd have a shamed the while she gives me und my mamma whole bunches
of things already. She could to think, maybe, I'm a greedy. But I needs
that paper awful much. I needs I shall go on the country for see mine
papa."
"No, she don't thinks you is greedy. Ain't you monitors on the back
of her waist? You should come up here 'fore the childrens comes for
see how her buttons stands. You go und tell her you needs that paper."
Very diplomatically Yetta did. "Teacher," she began,
"buttoned-in-back-dresses is stylish fer ladies."
"Yes, honey," Miss Bailey acquiesced, "so I thought when I saw that
you wear one."