explained.
"Morris, he gives the horse a sweet potato und the horse he swallows
the golden ring. He swallows it way, way, WAY down. Und it was from
sure gold-"
"But it must have been very loose or it wouldn't have come off his
finger so easily."
"It didn't come off," said Nathan patiently. "The horse he swallowed
the finger too--four fingers--und it was from sure gold ring mit his
name scratched in on it, what he had off of you, Teacher, for present
over that cat."
"Oh, you must be wrong," cried Miss Bailey, "it can't be as bad as you
say."
"Yiss ma'an, from sure gold mit--"
"But his hand. Are you sure about his hand?"
"I seen it," said Nathan. "I seen how comes blood on the sidewalk. I
seen how comes a great big all of people. I seen how comes Morris's
mamma und hollers like a fair theayter. I seen how comes Patrick
Brennan's papa--he's a cop--und he makes come the amb'lance. Und
sooner the doctor seen how comes blood on the sidewalk he says like
this: so Morris bleeds four more inches of blood he don't got no more
blood in his body. Say, I seen right into Morris. He's red inside.
So-o-oh, the doctor he bandages up his hand und takes him in the
amb'lance, und all times his mamma hollers und yells und says mad words
on the doctor so he had a mad over her. Und Morris he lays in the
amb'lance und cries. Now he's sick."
School dragged heavily that morning for the distressed and powerless
Miss Bailey. She thought remorsefully of the trusty armour of timidity
which she had, plate by plate, stripped from her favourite, and of the
bravery and loving kindness which she had so carefully substituted and
which had led the child--Where?
"Nathan," she called as the children were going home, "do you know to
what hospital Morris was taken? Did you see the doctor?"
"Sure did I."
"Was he a tall doctor? Had you ever seen him before?"
"No ma'an," answered Nathan with a beautiful directness. "It wasn't
your fellow We ain't seen him from long. But Morris he goes on the
Guv'neer Hospital. I ain't never seen the doctor, but I knows the
driver und the horse."
Shortly after three o'clock that afternoon Miss Bailey and Doctor
Ingraham were standing beside a little bed in Gouverneur Hospital.
"Nathan is a horrible little liar," said the doctor genially. "Morris
will be as well as ever in a week or so. The horse stood on his foot
and bruised it rather badly, but he has all his fingers and his ring
too. Haven't you, old man?"
"Yiss ma'an, yiss sir; I got it here," answered the boy, as, with his
uninjured hand, he drew up his battered trophy, hung about his neck
on a piece of antiseptic gauze. "It's from sure gold und you gives it
to me over that cat. But say, Teacher, Missis Bailey, horses ain't
like cats."
"No, dear, I know; that was a wicked horse."
"Yiss ma'an; I guess you don't know 'bout horses. You said boys should
make all times what is loving mit horses, but horses don't make what
is lovin' mit boys. Und my mamma she says it's a foolishness you should
make what is lovin' mit somebody sooner somebody don't make what is
loving mit you."
"That," said Dr. Ingraham, with a reproachful eye upon Miss Bailey,
"is one of the truest truths in all the laws and the prophets. 'A
foolishness' it certainly is."
"That's how my mamma says," Morris plaintively continued. "Und I guess
she knows. I done it und now I'm got a sickness over it."
"Of course you have," acquiesced the doctor. "So have I. We all get
it at times and its name is--"
"Don't listen to him, honey," Miss Bailey interrupted. "You will be
all right again in a few weeks."
"Years," interposed the doctor.
"And while you are here I shall come to see you every day to bring you
books and candy and to tell you stories."
"Tell me one now," Morris implored. "Take off your hat so I can put
mine head at your necktie, und then you should tell me that story over,
'Once upon some time when that world was young.'"
It was nearly five o'clock when Miss Bailey gently disengaged herself
and set out upon her uptown way. She passed from the hush of the
hospital walls and halls into another phase of her accountability.
Upon the steps, a woman, wild-eyed and dishevelled, was hurling an
unintelligible mixture of pleading and abuse upon the stalwart frame
of Patrick Brennan's father, the policeman on the beat. The woman tore
her hair, wept, and beat her breast, but Mr. Brennan's calm was
impassive.
"You can't see him," he remarked. "Didn't they tell you that Thursday
was visiting day? Well, and isn't this Choos-day? Go home now and shut
up."
"Mine Gott, he will die!" wailed the woman.
"Not he," said Mr. Brennan. "Go home now and come back on Thursday.
There's no good standing there. And there's no good in coming back in
half an hour. You'll not see him before Thursday."
The woman fell to wild weeping and her sympathetic neighbours followed
suit.
"Ach, mine little boy!" she wailed. "Mine arme little Morris!" And
"arme little Morris" the neighbours echoed.
"Morris Mogilewsky?" asked Miss Bailey.
"Yes ma'an," answered Mr. Brennan with a shrug.
"Yes ma'an," cried the neighbours in shrill chorus.
"Yes ma'an," wailed the woman. "Mine Morris. They makes I shouldn't
to see him. They takes him here the while he gets killed off of a
horse."
"Killed und chawed off of a horse," shrieked the comforting neighbours.
"And are you his mother?" pursued Miss Bailey.
"Yes ma'an," they all answered as before.
"Very well, I think I can take you to see him. But not if you are going
to be noisy."
A stillness as of death settled upon Mrs. Mogilewsky as she sank down
at Miss Bailey's feet in dumb appeal. And Constance Bailey saw in the
eyes, so like Morris's, fixed upon her face, a world of misery which
she had surely though innocently wrought.
Dr. Ingraham was summoned and bent to Miss Bailey's will. A few moments
later Morris's languid gaze embraced his mother, his teacher, and his
doctor. The latter found Mrs. Mogilewsky's woe impervious to any
soothing. "Chawed off of a horse!" she whimpered. "All the child what
I got, chawed off of a horse!"
"Wicked old horse!" ejaculated Teacher.
"Crazy old Teacher!" snorted Mrs. Mogilewsky. "Fool old Teacher! I
sends my little boy on the school so he should the English write und
talk und the numbers learn so he comes--through the years maybe--American
man, und she learns him foolishness over dogs und cats und
horses. Crazy, crazy, crazy!"
"Oh, come now. That's rather strong," remonstrated Doctor Ingraham,
with a quizzical glance at Miss Bailey. Mrs. Mogilewsky wheeled towards
her benefactress.
"Do you know Morris's teacher?" she asked eagerly. "Ach, lady, kind
lady, tell me where is her house; I like I shall tell her how she make
sickness on my little boy. He lays on the bed over her. I like I should
tell her somethings."
"Mrs. Mogilewsky," began Miss Bailey, gently, "there is nothing you
could say to her that would make her more sorry than she is. She is
broken-hearted already, and if you don't stop talking like that you
will make her cry. And then Morris would surely cry too; shouldn't
you, dearie?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an," quavered Morris.
"You!" groaned Mrs. Mogilewsky. "Be you Morris's teacher? Gott, how
I makes mistakes! So you learn him that foolishness extra so he gets
chawed off of horses?"
"Nonsense," interposed the doctor. "Miss Bailey is ridiculously fond
of that child of yours."
"So-o-oh," began Mrs. Mogilewsky. "So-o-oh, she ain't done it extra?"
"Purposely? Of course not," answered the doctor.
"Ach, well, I should better maybe, excuse her." Mrs. Mogilewsky,
placated and bland, resumed: "I excuse her the while she ain't so awful
old. She makes, sometimes, mistakes too. I like you should come--the
both--on my house for see me some day. That makes me glad in mine
heart."
"Oh mamma, mamma," cried Morris, "they couldn't to come by our house.
They is Krishts. She is Krishts und he is Krishts. From long she tells
me. Und you says, you says--"
"Think shame," his mother admonished him. "Ain't you seen how she is
lovin' mit you? Und Morris, mine golden one, I am all times lovin' mit
somebody what is lovin' mit you. Ain't I excused her over it und made
her invitation on my house?
"And we shall be delighted," said the doctor, as he led the speechless
Miss Bailey away. "It is uncommonly good of you to have forgiven her.
But, as you, with keenest insight, discern, she is not very old. Perhaps
she will reform."
"Reform! I hate the very word," sighed Miss Bailey, for the day had
been trying and her discouragement was great. "I've been trying to
reform these people ever since I came down here. I've failed and failed
and failed; misunderstood time and time again; made mistake after
mistake. And now I've nearly killed that boy. The woman was right. It
was all my fault."
"It might be better--" began the Doctor and halted. "You might be
happier if you--"
"Resigned?" suggested Teacher. "Yes, sometimes I think I shall."
"Do," said Doctor Ingraham. "That's a capital beginning."
THE END