her correctness. "All times they opens, yours und mine, und that makes
us shamed feelings."
Again Miss Bailey acquiesced.
"So-o-oh," pursued Yetta, with fast beating heart; "don't you wants
you should give me somethings from paper mit writings on it so I could
come on your room all times for see how is your buttoned-in-back-dresses?"
"A beautiful idea," cried Teacher. "We'll take care of one another's
buttons. I'll write the card for you now. You know what to do with it?"
"Yiss ma'an. Eva tells me all times how I could come where I wants
sooner you writes on papers how I is good girls."
"I'll write nicer things than that on yours," said Miss Bailey. "You
are one of the best little girls in the world. So useful to your mother
and to the babies and to me! Oh yes, I'll write beautiful things on
your card, my dear."
When the Grand Street car had borne Miss Bailey away Yetta turned to
Eva with determination in her eye and the "paper mit writings" in her
hand.
"I'm goin' on the country for see my papa und birds und flowers und
all them things what Teacher tells stands in the country. I need I
should see them."
"Out your mamma?" Eva remonstrated.
"'Out, 'out my mamma. She ain't got no time for go on no country. I
don't needs my mamma should go by my side. Ain't you said I could to
go all places what I wants I should go, sooner Teacher gives me papers
mit writings?"
"Sure could you," Eva repeated solemnly. "There ain't no place where
you couldn't to go mit it."
"I'll go on the country," said Yetta.
That evening Mrs. Aaronsohn joined her neighbours upon the doorstep
for the first time in seven years. For Yetta was lost. The neighbours
were comforting but not resourceful. They all knew Yetta; knew her to
be sensible and mature for her years even according to the exacting
standard of the East Side. She would presently return, they assured
the distraught Mrs. Aaronsohn, and pending that happy event they
entertained her with details of the wanderings and home comings of
their own offspring. But Yetta did not come. The reminiscent mothers
talked themselves into silence, the deserted babies cried themselves
to sleep. Mrs. Aaronsohn carried them up to bed--she hardly knew the
outer aspect of her own door--and returned to the then deserted doorstep
to watch for her first-born. One by one the lights were extinguished,
the sewing-machines stopped, and the restless night of the quarter
closed down. She was afraid to go even as far as the corner in search
of the fugitive. She could not have recognized the house which held
her home.
All her hopes were centered in the coming of Miss Bailey. When the
children of happier women were setting out for school she demanded and
obtained from one of them safe conduct to Room 18. But Teacher, when
Eva Gonorowsky had interpreted the tale of Yetta's disappearance, could
suggest no explanation.
"She was with me until half-past three. Then she and Eva walked with
me to the corner. Did she tell you, dear, where she was going?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an. She says she goes on the country for see her
papa und birds und flowers."
When this was put into Jewish for Mrs. Aaronsohn she was neither
comforted nor reassured. Miss Bailey was puzzled but undismayed. "We'll
find her," she promised the now tearful mother. "I shall go with you
to look for her. Say that in Jewish for me, Eva."
The Principal lent a substitute. Room 18 was deserted by its sovereign:
the pencils were deserted by their monitor: and Mrs. Aaronsohn, Miss
Bailey and Eva Gonorowsky, official interpreter, set out for the nearest
drug-store where a telephone might be. They inspected several unclaimed
children before, in the station of a precinct many weary blocks away,
they came upon Yetta. She was more dirty and bedraggled than she had
ever been, but the charm of her manner was unchanged and, suspended
about her neck, she wore a policeman's button.
"One of the men brought her in here at ten o'clock last night," the
man behind the blotter informed Miss Bailey, while Mrs. Aaronsohn
showered abuse and caress upon the wanderer. "She was straying around
the Bowery and she gave us a great game of talk about her father bein'
a bird. I guess he is."
"My papa und birds is on the country. I likes I shall go there," said
Yetta from the depths of her mother's embrace.
"There, that's what she tells everyone. She has a card there with a
Christian name and no address on it. I was going to try to identify
her by looking for this Miss Constance Bailey."
"That is my name. I am her teacher. I gave her the card because--"
"I'm monitors. I should go all places what I wants the while I'm good
girls und Teacher writes it on pieces from paper. On'y I ain't want
I should come on no cops' house. I likes I should go on the country
for see my papa und birds und flowers. I says like that on a cop--I
shows him the paper even--und he makes I shall come here on the cops'
house where my papa don't stands und birds don't stands und flowers
don't stands."
"When next you want to go to the country," said Teacher, "you ought
to let us know. You have frightened us all dreadfully and that is a
very naughty thing to do. If you ever run away again I shall have to
keep the promise I made to you long and long ago when you used to come
late to school. I shall have to tolerate you."
But Yetta was undismayed. "I ain't got no more a scare over that,"
said she with a soft smile towards the brass-buttoned person behind
the blotter. "Und I ain't got no scare over cops neither; I never in
mine world seen how they makes all things what is polite mit me und
gives me I should eat."
"Well," cautioned Teacher, "you must never do it again," and turned her
attention to the very erratic spelling of Sergeant Moloney's official
record of the flight of Yetta Aaronsohn.
"Say," whispered Eva, and there was a tinge of jealousy in her soft
voice; "say, who gives you the button like Patrick Brennan's got?"
"THE COP," answered Yetta, pointing a dirty but reverential finger
towards her new divinity. "I guess maybe I turns me the dress around.
Buttoned-in-front-mit-from-gold-button-suits is awful stylish. He's
got 'em."
"Think shame how you says," cried Eva, with loyal eyes upon the neatly
buttoned and all unsuspecting back of Miss Bailey, "Ain't you seen how
is Teacher's back?"
"Ain't I monitors off of it?" demanded Yetta. "Sure I know how is it.
On'y I don't know be they so stylish. Cops ain't got 'em und, oh Eva,
Cops is somethin' grand! I turns me the dress around."
THE TOUCH OF NATURE
"There is," wrote the authorities with a rare enthusiasm, "no greater
power for the mental, moral and physical uplifting of the Child than
a knowledge and an appreciation of the Beauties of Nature. It is the
duty and the privilege of the teacher to bring this elevating influence
into the lives of the children for whom she is responsible."
There are not many of the Beauties of Nature to be found on the lower
East Side of New York, and Miss Bailey found this portion of her duty
full of difficulty. Excursions were out of the question, and she
discovered that specimens conveyed but crudely erroneous ideas to
the minds of her little people. She was growing discouraged at the
halting progress of the First Reader Class in Natural Science, when,
early in October, the Principal ushered into Room 18, Miss Eudora
Langdon, Lecturer on Biology and Nature Study in a Western university, a
shining light in the world of education, and an orator in her own
conceit.
"I shall leave Miss Langdon with you for a short time, Miss Bailey,"
said the Principal when the introductions had been accomplished. "She
is interested in the questions which are troubling you, and would like
to speak to the children if you have no objection."
"Surely none," replied Miss Bailey; and when the Principal had retired
to interview parents and book-agents, she went on: "I find it difficult
to make Nature Study real to the children. They regard it all as
fairy-lore."
"Ah, yes," the visitor admitted; "it does require some skill. You
should appeal to their sense of the beautiful."
"But I greatly fear," said Teacher sadly, "that the poor babies know
very little about beauty."
"Then develop the ideal," cried Miss Langdon, and the eyes behind her
glasses shone with zeal. "Begin this very day. Should you like me to
open up a topic?"
"If you will be so very good," said Teacher, with some covert amusement,
and Miss Langdon, laying her note-book on the desk, turned to address
the class. Immediately Nathan Spiderwitz, always on the alert for bad
news, started a rumour which spread from desk to desk--"Miss Bailey
could to be goin' away. This could be a new teacher."
"My dears," Miss Eudora began, with deliberate and heavy coyness; "I'm
_so_ fond of little children! I've always loved them. That's why
your kind Principal brought me here to talk to you. Now, wasn't that
good of him?"
At this confirmation of their fears the First Reader Class showed so
moderate a joy that Miss Langdon hurried on: "And what would you like
me to tell you about?"
"Lions," said Patrick Brennan promptly. "Big hairy lions with teeth."
The visitor paused almost blankly while the children brightened. Miss
Bailey struggled with a rebellious laugh, but Miss Langdon recovered
quickly.
"I shall tell you," she began serenely, "about Beauty. Beauty is one
of the greatest things in the world. Beauty makes us strong. Beauty
makes us happy. I want you all to think--think hard--and tell me what
we can do to make our lives more beautiful."
Fifty-eight pairs of troubled eyes sought inspiration in the face of
the rightful sovereign. Fifty-eight little minds wrestled dumbly.
"Well, I suppose I must help you," said Miss Eudora with elephantine
sprightliness. "Now, children, in the first place you must always read
beautiful books; then, always look at beautiful things; and lastly,
always think beautiful thoughts."
"Miss Langdon," Teacher gently interposed, "these children cannot read
very much--twenty-five words perhaps--and for the majority of them,
poor little things, this school-room is the prettiest place in the
world."
"Oh, that's all right. My text is right there," said the visitor, with
a nod towards a tree, the only large one in the district, which was
visible through the window. It had not yet lost its leaves, and a
shower during the preceding night had left it passably green. Turning
to the children, now puzzled into fretful unhappiness, she clasped her
hands, closed her eyes in rapture, and proceeded:
"You all know how Beauty helps you. How it strengthens you for your
work. Why, in the morning when you come to school you see a beautiful
thing which cheers you for the whole day. Now, see if you can't tell
me what it is."
Another heavy silence followed and Miss Langdon turned again to Teacher.
"Don't you teach them by the Socratic method?" she asked loftily.
"Oh, yes," Miss Bailey replied, and then, with a hospitable desire to
make her guest feel quite at home, she added: "But facts must be closely
correlated with their thought-content. Their apperceiving basis is not
large."
"Ah, yes; of course," said the expert vaguely, but with a new
consideration, and then to the waiting class: "Children, the beautiful
thing I'm thinking of is green. Can't you think of something green and
beautiful which you see every morning?"
Eva Gonorowsky's big brown eyes fixed solemnly upon Teacher, flamed
with sudden inspiration, and Teacher stiffened with an equally sudden
fear. For smoothly starched and green was her whole shirtwaist, and
carefully tied and green was her neat stock.
Eva whispered jubilantly to Morris Mogilewsky, and another rumour swept
the ranks. Intelligence flashed into face after face, and Miss Bailey
knew that her fear was not unfounded, for, though Miss Langdon was
waving an explanatory arm towards the open window, the gaze of the
First Reader Class, bright with appreciation and amusement, was fixed
on its now distracted teacher.
"You can see this beautiful green joy sometimes when you are in the
street," Miss Langdon ambled on; "but you see it best when you are
here."
Three hands shot up into the quiet air.
"And I don't think the children in the other rooms see it as well as
you do."
"No ma'am," cried a delighted chorus, and eight more hands were raised.
Prompting was reckless now and hands sprang up in all directions.
"No, I don't think they do," Miss Langdon agreed. "I think perhaps
that Heaven meant it just for you. Just for the good little boys and
girls in this room."
The enthusiasm grew wild and general. Miss Langdon turned a glance of
triumph upon Miss Bailey, and was somewhat surprised by the very scarlet
confusion which she saw.
"It's all in the method," she said with pride, and, to the class: "Now,
can you tell me the name of this beautiful green thing which makes us
all so happy?"
And the answer was a great, glad cry of: "Teacher's jumper!"
"What?"
"Teacher's jumper!" shouted the children as before, and Eva Gonorowsky,
who had been the first to guess the jocular lady's meaning, put it
more plainly.
"Missis Bailey's got a green waist. Green is all the style this year."
Miss Langdon sat down suddenly; stared; gasped; and then, as she was
a clever woman, laughed.
"Miss Bailey," she said, "you have a problem here. I wish you all
success, but the apperceiving basis is, as you say, very limited."
To the solving of this problem Teacher bent all her energies. Through
diligent research she learned that the reading aloud of standard poems
has been known to do wonders of mental and moral uplifting. But standard
poems are not commonly adapted to minds six years old and of foreign
extraction, so that Miss Bailey, though she explained, paraphrased,
and commented, hardly flattered herself that the result was
satisfactory. In courteous though puzzled silence the First Reader
Class listened to enough of the poetry of the ages to have lifted them
as high as Heaven. Wordsworth, Longfellow, Browning, any one who had
seen and written of the beauty of bird or growing thing, was pressed
into service. And then one day Miss Bailey brought her Shelley down
and read his "Ode to the Skylark."
"Now, don't you think that's a pretty thing?" she asked. "Did you hear
how the lark went singing, bright and clear, up and up and up into the
blue sky?"
The children were carefully attentive, as ever, but not responsive.
Morris Mogilewsky felt that he had alone understood the nature of this
story. It was meant to amuse; therefore it was polite that one should
be amused.
"Teacher fools," he chuckled. "Larks ain't singin' in skies."
"How do you know?" asked Miss Bailey.
"'Cause we got a lark by our house. It's a from tin lark mit a cover."
"A tin lark! With a cover!" Miss Bailey exclaimed. "Are you sure, dear,
that you know what you are talking about?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an, I know," Morris began deliberately. "My papa,
he has a lark. It's a from tin lark mit a cover. Und its got a handle
too. Und my papa he takes it all times on the store for buy a lark of
beer."
"Lager beer! Oh, shade of Shelley!" groaned Miss Bailey's spirit, but
aloud she only said: "No, my dear, I wasn't reading about lager beer.
A lark is a little bird."
"Well," Morris began with renewed confidence, "I know what is a bird.
My auntie she had one from long. She says like that, she should give
it to me, but my mamma she says, 'No, birds is foolishness.' But I
know what is a bird. He scups on a stick in a cage."
"So he does," agreed Miss Bailey, rightly inferring from Morris's
expressive pantomime that to "scup" was to swing. "But sometimes he
flies up into the sky in the country, as I was reading to you. Were
you ever in the country?"
"What country?" asked Morris. "Russia? I comes out of Russia."
"No, not Russia. Not any particular country. Just the open country
where the flowers grow."
"No ma'an, I ain't seen it," said the child gently. "But I was once
to Tompkins Square. On'y it was winter und snow lays on it. I ain't
seen no flowers."
"And do none of you know anything about the country?" asked Teacher
sadly.
"Oh, yiss ma'an, I know," said Eva Gonorowsky. "The country is the
Fresh Air Fund."
"Then you've been there," cried Miss Bailey. "Tell us about it, Eva."
"No ma'an, I ain't seen it," said Eva proudly. "I'm healthy. But a
girl on my block she had a sickness und so she goes. She tells me all
times how is the country. It's got grass stickin' right up out of it.
Grass und flowers! No ma'an, I ain't never seen it: I don't know where
is it even, but oh! it could to be awful pretty!"
"Yes, honey, it is," said Teacher. "Very, very pretty. When I was a
little girl I lived in the country."
"All day?" asked Morris.
"Yes, all day."
"Und all night?"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh, poor Miss Bailey," crooned Eva. "It could to be a awful sickness
what you had."
"No, I was very well. I lived in the country because my father had a
house there, and I played all day in the garden."
"Weren't you scared of the lions?" asked Patrick in incredulous
admiration.
"We had no lions," Miss Bailey explained apologetically. "But we had
rabbits and guinea pigs and a horse and a cow and chickens and ducks
and--and--"
"Und eleflints," Morris suggested hope-fully.
"No, we had no elephants," Teacher was forced to admit. "But we had
a turtle and a monkey."
"Did your papa have a organ?" asked Sadie Gonorowsky. "Organs mit
monkeys is stylish for mans."
"Think shame how you says!" cried her cousin Eva reproachfully. "Teacher
ain't no Ginney. Organs ain't for Sheenies. They ain't for Krishts
even. They all, all for Ginneys."
"So's monkeys," said Sadie, unabashed. "Und organs mit monkeys _is_
stylish."
The children's deep interest in the animal kingdom gave Miss Bailey
the point of departure for which she had been seeking. She abandoned
Wordsworth and Shelley, and she bought a rabbit and a pair of white
mice. The First Reader Class was enchanted. A canary in a gilded cage
soon hung before the window and "scupped" most energetically while
gold-fish in their bowl swam lazily back and forth. From these living
texts, Miss Bailey easily preached care and kindness towards all
creatures, and Room 18 came to be an energetic though independent
branch of the S.P.C.A.
The most sincere and zealous worker in the new field was Morris
Mogilewsky, Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl. Day after day he earned new
smiles and commendations from his liege lady by reports of cats and
kittens fed and warmed, and of dogs rescued from torment. He was
awakened one night by the cries of an outcast cat and followed the
sounds to the roof of his tenement only to find that they came from
another roof further down the block. The night was wet and blustering,
but Morris was undismayed. He crawled over walls and round chimneys
until he reached the cat and dragged her back to safety and refreshment.
When, in the early dark of the next morning, Mrs. Mogilewsky discovered
that the elements of the family breakfast had been lavished on the
wanderer, she showed some natural resentment, but when she understood
that such prodigality was encouraged, even rewarded, in high places,
her wrath was very great.
"So-o-oh, you foolishness like that on the school learns!" she fumed.
"Und your teacher she learns you you should like so mit your papa's
breakfast und cats make! She is then fine teacher!"
"She's a awful nice teacher," cried Morris, with hot loyalty. "Awful
nice. Sooner you seen her sooner you could to be loving mit her too.
Ain't you _never_ comin' on the school for to see mine teacher?"
"No!" his mother almost shrieked. "No! I seen her on the street once
und she had looks off of Krishts. I don't need no Krishts. You don't
need them neither. They ain't for us. You ain't so big like I could
to tell you how they makes mit us in Russia. I don't like you should
hold so much over no Krisht. For us they is devils."
"Teacher ain't no devil," cried Morris, and he would have laid down
his loyal life to have been able to add now, as he had some months
earlier, "she ain't no Krisht neither," but he knew that his mother
had guessed truly. Teacher was a Christian, she had told him so, and
he had sworn to protect her secret.
His mother's constant though generally smouldering hostility towards
Miss Bailey troubled and puzzled him. In fact, many things were beyond
his understanding. Night after night he lay in his corner behind the
stove and listened while his father and his father's friends railed
against the Christians and the Czar. He had seen strange meetings of
grim and intent men, had listened to low reading of strange threats
and mad reviling. And always he gathered that the Christian was a thing
unspeakable, unknowable, without truth, or heart or trust. A thing to
be feared and hated now but, in the glorious future, when the God of
Israel should be once more remindful of his people, a thing to be
triumphed over and trampled on.
Yet each morning Morris waited at the big school door for the smile
of a lady's face, the touch of a lady's hand, and each day he learned
new gentleness and love, new interests and new wonders under her
calm-eyed dominion. And behold, the lady was a Christian, and he loved
her and she was very good to him!
For his bright service to the cause of Nature in the matter of the
cat, she had decorated him, not with a button or a garter--though
neither would have been inappropriate--but with a ring bearing his
initials gorgeously entwined. Then proud and happy was Morris
Mogilewsky, and wild was the emulation of other members of the First
Reader Class. Then serious was Teacher's account with a jeweller over
in Columbia Street and grave her doubts as to Herr Froebel's blessing
on the scheme. But the problem was solved. Of all the busy hours in
Room 18's crowded day, there was none more happy than that devoted to
"Nature Study--Domestic Animals and Home Pets."
And then one morning Morris failed to answer to the roll-call. Never
had he been absent since his first day at school, and Miss Bailey was
full of uneasiness. Nathan Spiderwitz, Morris's friend and ally, was
also missing, but at half-past nine he arrived entirely breathless and
shockingly untidy.
"Nathan," said Teacher reprovingly, "you are very late."
"Yiss ma'an. I tells you 'scuse," gasped Nathan. "On'y Morris--"
"Where is he?" cried Miss Bailey. "Is there anything the matter with
him?"
"Yiss ma'an. He ain't got no more that golden ring what you gives him
over that cat."
A murmur of commiseration swept through the room. "Oh, poor Morris!"
sighed Eva Gonorowsky. "Ain't that fierce! From sure gold rings is
awful stylish und they cost whole bunches of money."
"Morris is a silly little boy," said Teacher crossly, for she had been
frightened, as it now seemed, to no purpose. "I'll measure his finger
for a new ring when he comes in."
"He ain't comin'," said Nathan briefly.
"Not coming to school simply because he lost a ring! Nonsense! Nathan,
you just run back to Morris's house and tell him he must come. Tell
him I'll give him a new ring and--"
"But he ain't to his house," Nathan objected. "I seen how he goes
away."
"Well, then, how did he go away?"
"Teacher, it's like this. Me und Morris we stands by our block when
comes the baker's wagon. Und the baker he goes in the groc'ry store
to sell bread und his wagon und horse stands by us. Und, say, on the
horse's face is something, from leather, so the horse couldn't to eat.
He couldn't to open his mouth even. But all times he longs out his
neck like he should eat und he looks on me und Morris. So Morris he
says: 'Ain't it fierce how that bad man makes mit that horse? Something
from leather on the face ain't healthy for horses. I guess I takes it
off.'"
"But he didn't, Nathan?"
"Yiss ma'an, he takes it off. He says like that: 'You know how Teacher
says we should make all times what is lovin' mit dogs und cats und
horses.' Und say, Teacher, Missis Bailey, that's how you says. He had
a ring over it. A from sure gold ring mit his name--"
"But the horse?" Miss Bailey interrupted. "The horse with the muzzle.
I remember, dear, what I said, but I hope Morris didn't touch that
baker's horse."
"Sure did he," cried Nathan. "He buttons out that thing what I told
you from leather, on the horse's face, und the horse he swallows the
golden ring."