[Sidenote: Soiled Face]
Miss Gebhard had been teaching in the Lowell School for a week. Every
one of the five days little Hazel Jordan had been a blemish to the group
of beautiful children with whom she associated. Hazel was ugly of face,
ungainly in movements, dull of intellect and unaccustomed to the regular
use of soap and water. This was Miss Gebhard’s first year of teaching.
She had read that teachers must see to it that their pupils have clean
hands and faces. During her first week she was so busy with organizing
her school that she felt unable to cope with lesser problems. As she
reviewed her week’s work and recalled the characteristics of her various
pupils, she said to herself, “That little Jordan girl must be made
cleaner next week.”
Accordingly, on Monday morning when Hazel entered with dirty hands, face
and clothing, Miss Gebhard said, “Hazel Jordan, go home and wash your
hands and face and come back here clean.”
Perfect stillness reigned over the school-room for a moment after this
command was given, and Hazel, eyeing Miss Gebhard as she went, passed
out of the room and ran breathlessly home.
Now, Hazel’s mother was a widow who washed so much for other people that
she had neither time nor strength to care for her own children; besides,
Hazel had few dresses, and on this Monday morning all of them were
soiled. When the child reached home and told Mrs. Jordan what Miss
Gebhard had said, her mother wept in self-pity.
“Nobody cares how hard I work,” she wailed; “all the notice I get is to
be insulted. You just stay home from school and I’ll go and see Tom
Ellis and ask him if a widow has got to dress her children up fine
before she can send them to public school.”
As soon as the washing she was then doing was “on the line,” she went to
see Mr. Ellis, a member of the school board, and told him that Hazel had
been sent home from school because she wasn’t dressed up to suit the
teacher.
Miss Gebhard was a little alarmed because Hazel did not return, and was
agitated when she saw Mr. Ellis, the most influential member of the
school board, standing in the doorway of her school-room. All of the
pupils stared while Mr. Ellis catechized Miss Gebhard as to why she sent
Hazel Jordan home. In vain she explained that she said nothing about her
clothes. She could see that Mr. Ellis thought she had acted unwisely, as
he reiterated, “Her mother’s a hard-working widow, you know, and her
feelings are hurt.”
It seemed clear to Miss Gebhard that she had blundered. She called upon
Mrs. Jordan, who wept at her own poverty and seemed unlikely to be able
to distinguish between cleanliness and richness of dress.
Miss Gebhard decided that the matter of cleanliness was too difficult
for her to handle and made no further recommendations on the subject
during the year.