[Sidenote: Why Remove Hats?]
Leonard and Karl Rosenbush were two sturdy little rationalists of ten
and twelve years. They despised poetry, utterly rejected fairy stories,
and took a strictly scientific view of life generally. They belonged to
a family of culture and refined tradition, and their attitude amused
their father greatly, while it reduced their mother to despair. She was
often unable to give them the reasons they demanded for what she had
always accepted without a question.
Miss Forbes, their teacher, was one day giving her room a lesson in good
manners. They were discussing modes of salutation when Karl raised a
vigorous protest to taking off his hat to women.
“Well, now, _why_ do we have to take off our hats to women any more than
to men?” he asked. “I don’t see why they’re so terribly good they have
to be treated like a church.”
“Why, Karl, I never heard of such ideas. Doesn’t your father take off
his hat to women?”
“Yes, and he can’t give any more reason than you can. All he did when I
asked him was to laugh and say I mustn’t be a barbarian. I’d rather be a
barbarian than to do such a senseless thing, anyway. Women aren’t any
better than men.”
“Karl, I want you to take off your hat to women now, and when you’re a
man you’ll know the reason why.”
“That’s it, put me off with ‘when I’m a man!’ Father said that, too. But
if there is any reason, why can’t you tell me now? It’s just like Santa
Claus—there isn’t any, and only little kids and girls believe it.”
Leonard nodded a vigorous amen to his brother’s heterodoxy, and Miss
Forbes let the matter drop because she did not know how to meet Karl’s
arguments, although she was sure he was wrong. The two boys took a
mischievous delight in passing her and other teachers on the street
without lifting their caps or even touching them.