Books: Little Citizens
M >>
Myra Kelly >> Little Citizens
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 Phil McLaury, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
LITTLE CITIZENS
The Humours of School Life
BY MYRA KELLY
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
A Little Matter of Real Estate
The Uses of Adversity
A Christmas Present for a Lady
Love Among the Blackboards
Morris and the Honourable Tim
When a Man's Widowed
H.R.H. The Prince of Hester Street
The Land Of Heart's Desire
A Passport to Paradise
The Touch of Nature
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Say, Teacher, I got something for you". _Frontispiece_
Isidore Belchatosky, the Adonis of the class
"I got two swollen legs over her"
"My dear little chap, you mustn't cry like that"
"Dismissed with the common herd at three o'clock"
"I must ask you to leave this room"
"Teacher, I tells you 'scuse"
"So you want lick, so you can lick"
"She's a beautiful yonge uptown lady, but easy scared. Oh, awful easy
scared!"
"Don't you dast to touch me," he yelled
"Look at your back!"
"You'll wish you minded your own ---- business before I get through
with you"
Morris Mogilewsky
"I washes me the face"
"Ain't you never comin' on the school for to see mine teacher?"
A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE
Four weeks of teaching in a lower East Side school had deprived
Constance Bailey of many of the "Ideals in Education" which, during
four years at college, she had trustingly acquired. But, despite many
discouragements, despite an unintelligible dialect and an autocratic
"Course of Study," she clung to an ambition to establish harmony in
her kingdom and to impress a high moral tone upon the fifty-eight
little children of Israel entrusted to her care. She was therefore
troubled and heavy of heart when it was borne in upon her that two of
her little flock--cousins to boot, and girls--had so far forgotten the
Golden Rule as to be "mad on theirselves und wouldn't to talk even,"
as that Bureau of Fashionable Intelligence, Sarah Schrodsky, duly
reported.
"Und Teacher," Sarah continued, "Eva Gonorowsky's mamma has a mad on
Sadie Gonorowsky's mamma, und her papa has a mad on her papa, und her
gran'ma has a mad on both of papas und both of mammas, und her gran'pa
has a mad somethin' fierce on both of uncles, und her auntie--"
Here Miss Bailey sent the too communicative Sarah to her place and
called the divided house of Gonorowsky to her desk for instant judgment.
And as she held forth she was delighted to see that her words were
falling upon good ground, for the dark and dainty features of her
hearers expressed a flattering degree of conviction and of humility. She
was admiring the wonderful lashes lying damp and dark on Eva's smooth
cheek when the beautiful eyes unclosed, gazed straight across the desk
at Sadie, and Eva took a flying leap into Teacher's lap to cling with
arms and knees and fingers to her chosen refuge.
"Oh, Teacher, Teacher," she wailed, "Sadie makes on me such a snoot
I got a scare over it."
Miss Bailey turned to the so lately placid face of Sadie in search of
the devastating "snoot," but met only a serene glance of conscious
guilelessness and the assurance:
"No ma'an, I don't makes no snoot on nobody. I get killed as anything
off of my mamma sooner I makes a snoot. It ain't polite." This with
a reassuring smile and direct and candid gaze.
"Teacher, yiss ma'an, she makes all times a snoot on me," cried the
now weeping Eva, "all times. She turns her nose around, und makes go
away her eyes, und comes her tongue out long. On'y I dassent to fight
mit her while I'm cousins mit her. Und over cousins you got all times
kind feelings."
"Well, Sadie," Teacher questioned, "what have you to say?"
The dark eyes met Teacher's with no shadow in their depths as Sadie
uttered her denial:
"I _never_ in my world done no snoot."
A shudder of admiring awe swept over the assembled class--followed by
a gasp of open contradiction as Sadie went on with her vindication.
For Sadie's snoots were the envy of all the class. Had not Morris
Mogilewsky paid three cents for lessons in the art, and, with the
accomplishment, frightened a baby into what its angry mother described
as "spine-yell convulsions"? And now Sadie was saying, "I _couldn't_ to
make no snoot. Never. But, Teacher, it's like this: Eva makes _me_ whole
bunches of trouble. Bertha Binderwitz und me is monitors in the yard
when the childrens comes back from dinner. So-o-oh, I says, 'front
dress,' like you says, so the childrens shall look on what head is in
front of them. On'y Eva she don't 'front dress' at all, but extra she
longs out her neck und rubs on me somethin' fierce--"
"It's a lie!" interrupted Eva gently. "I don't make nothing like that.
I stands by my line und Sadie she makes faces on me with her hand. It
ain't polite." This with plaintive self-righteousness. "No ma'an, it
_ain't_ polite--you makes snoots mit your hand like this." And as Eva
illustrated with outspread fingers and a pink thumb in juxtaposition to
a diminutive nose, Teacher, with uncertain gravity, was forced to admit
that snoots of that description are sanctioned by few books of
etiquette.
"Now, my dear little girls," said she, "this quarrelling must stop.
I want you to kiss each other as cousins should."
This suggestion was a distinct failure. Eva and Sadie, with much
fluttering of aprons and waving of curls, sought opposite corners of
the schoolroom, while up started Sarah Schrodsky with: "Teacher, they
couldn't to make no kissing. They're mad on theirselves 'cause their
mammas has a mad. Sadie's mamma says like this on Eva's mamma, 'Don't
you dast to talk to me--you lives by the fifth floor und your man is
a robber.' Und Eva's mamma says--"
When Teacher had managed to silence Sarah she led the weeping
Gonorowskys back to their places and the scholastic world wagged on
in outward tranquillity.
Hostilities were temporarily suspended some days later owing to the
illness of Sadie, by far the more aggressive of the opposing parties.
Eva led a placid life for three peaceful days, and then--as by law
prescribed and postal card invited--Sadie's mother came to explain
her daughter's absence. Large of person, bland of manner, in a heavy
black shawl and a heavier black wig, Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky stood
beaming and bobbing in the hall.
"I likes I should Sadie Gonorowsky's teacher see," she began, in the
peculiar English of the adult population of the East Side. Mrs.
Gonorowsky could neither use nor understand her young daughter's copious
invective. Upon being assured that the diminutive form before her was
indeed clothed with authority, she announced:
"Comes a letter I should by the school come. I was Sadie's mamma."
Here she drew from the inner recesses of the black shawl a bundle
which, being placed in a perpendicular position, proved to be the most
recent addition to the Gonorowsky household. She smoothed it with a
work-worn but tender hand, and repeated in a saddened voice: "Yes,
ma'am, I was her mamma und she lays now on the bed."
The increasing sadness of Mrs. Gonorowsky's announcement and its
sinister phraseology startled Teacher. "Not dead!" she cried. "Oh,
surely not dead!"
"Sure not," was the indignant response. "She's got such a sickness she
must lay on the bed, und comes the doctor. Sadie's papa holds much on
that child, Miss Teacher, und all times he has a worry over her. Me
too. She comes by the school tomorrow maybe, und I ask you by a favour
you should do me the kindness to look on her. So she feel again sick
she should better on the house come. She say, 'Oh, mamma, I got a
lovely teacher; I likes to look on her the while she has such a light
face.'"
Having thus diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with
great suavity asked, "Sadie is a good girl, hein?"
"Oh, yes, indeed."
"She is shmardt, hein? She don't make you no troubles?"
"Well," Miss Bailey answered, "she has rather bothered me lately by
quarrelling with her little cousin, Eva."
"So-o-oh!" exclaimed Sadie's parent ponderously. "So-o-oh, Eva
Gonorowsky makes you troubles; she is a bad girl--I tell Sadie--Sadie
is a good girl--I tell her she should make nothings with Eva soch a
bad girl. For what you not put her back by baby class? She is not
shmardt."
"Oh, but she is; she is a bright little thing," cried Teacher. "I
couldn't think of putting her back. She's a dear little girl and I
can't imagine why Sadie quarrels with her."
Mrs. Gonorowsky drew her ample form to a wonderful erectness, readjusted
her shawl, and answered with much stateliness:
"It was a trouble from off of real estate." With dignity and blandness
she proceeded to kiss Teacher's hand, and signified entire willingness
to entrust her precious Sadie to the care of so estimable a young
person, inquired solicitously if the work were not too much for so
small a lady, and cautioned the young person against rainy mornings.
Had she a mackintosh? Mr. Gonorowsky was selling them off that week.
Were her imperceptibles sufficiently warm? Mr. Gonorowsky, by a strange
chance, was absolutely giving away "fine all from wool" imperceptibles,
and the store was near. Mrs. Gonorowsky then withdrew, leaving a kindly
sentiment in Teacher's heart and an atmosphere of ironing-boards and
onions in the hall. On the following morning Sadie returned to her
"light-faced" teacher, and for one whole day hostilities were suspended.
But on the morning after this truce Eva was absent from her accustomed
place and Sadie blandly disclaimed all knowledge of her whereabouts.
After the noon recess a pathetic little figure wavered in the doorway
with one arm in a sling and one eye in a poultice. The remaining eye
was fixed in deep reproach on the face of Isidore Belchatosky, the
Adonis of the class, and the eye was the eye of Eva.
"Eva!" exclaimed Teacher, "oh, Eva, what can you have been doing?
What's the matter with your eye?"
"Isidore Belchatosky he goes und makes me this here shiner," said Eva's
accusing voice, as the eye under the poultice was uncovered for a
moment. It was indeed a "shiner" of aggravated aspect, and Isidore
cringed as it met his affrighted gaze. The sling and the bandages were
of gay chintz, showing forth the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and
their lurid colours made them horribly conspicuous. Friday scampered
across Eva's forehead, pursued by savages; and Crusoe, under his
enormous umbrella, nestled close to her heart.
"Surely Isidore would never hit a little girl?" Teacher remonstrated.
"Teacher, yiss ma'an; he makes me this here shiner. Sadie she goes und
tells him she kisses him a kiss so he makes me a shiner. He's lovin'
mit her und she's got kind feelin's by him, the while his papa's got
a candy cart. It's a stylish candy cart mit a bell und a horn. So-o-oh
I was yesterday on the store for buy my mamma some wurst, und I don't
make nothings mit nobody."
Here the poor, half-blind Eva, with her love and talent for pantomime,
took a gay little walk past Teacher's desk, with tossing head and
swinging skirts. Then with a cry she recoiled from the very memory of
her wrongs.
"Come Isidore! Und he hits me a hack on my leg so I couldn't to hold
it even. So I falls und I make me this here shiner. Und when my mamma
seen how comes such a bile on my bone she had a mad; she hollered
somethin' fierce."
One could well sympathize with the harassed Mrs. Nathan Gonorowsky.
"So-o-oh," continued Eva with melancholy enjoyment, "my mamma she puts
medsin at a rag und bangages up mine eye. Und now I ain't healthy."
"Sadie Gonorowsky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, in a voice which
lifted Sadie bodily from the place to which she had guiltily determined
to cling. And Sadie went, jaunty of air, but with shifting eyes.
"Isidore Belchatosky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, and Isidore
slunk after his divinity.
Teacher was savagely angry, but bylaws forbade corporal punishment,
and principles--and the Principal--forbade noisy upbraidings. And so
with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty,
she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when addressing
ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity.
"Sadie and Isidore, did you dare to interfere with the life, the liberty
and the happiness of our cherished young friend, Eva Gonorowsky? Did
you _dare_?"
"No ma'an," said Sadie with a sob.
"It's a lie!" said Isidore with a snuffle.
"Did you, Isidore, allow yourself to be tempted by beauty to such
inconceivable depravity as to blacken Eva's eye?"
"No ma'an. Self done it."
"Did you, Sadie, descend so low as to barter kisses with Isidore
Belchatosky?"
"No ma'an," this with much scorn. "I wouldn't to kiss him; he's a
scare-cat, und he tells out."
"What did he tell?" asked Teacher.
"He tells out how I say I kiss him a kiss so he make Eva a shiner. Und
I wouldn't to do it. Never. So he gave me five cents even, I wouldn't
to kiss no scare-cat."
"Well, then, why did you promise?"
"'Cause I couldn't to hit her mineself," said the doughty Sadie. She
was inches taller than her victim, and stout withal. "I couldn't,
'cause I ain't so healthy; I'm a nervous child, Teacher, und I was
day-before-yesterday sick on the bed."
Here the plaintive plaintiff showed a desire to testify once more, and
Teacher appointed three-thirty that afternoon as the hour most suitable
for a thorough examination of the case.
When the last arm had been twisted into the last sleeve, when the last
chin had been tied into the last shawl, when the last dispute as to
ownership in disreputable mittens had been settled, the great case of
Gonorowsky _vs._ Gonorowsky was called. On either side of the desk stood
a diminutive Gonorowsky; Eva still plaintive, and Sadie, redly, on the
defensive. Directly in front stood that labourer defrauded of his hire,
that tool in the hands of guileful woman--Isidore Belchatosky.
"Now," Teacher began, "I want to hear nothing but the truth. Isidore,
did you hit Eva?"
"Yiss ma'an."
"What for?"
"For a kiss."
"From whom?"
Here Sadie muttered a threat "to lay him down dead if he tells," and
Isidore required promise of safe conduct to his own block before he
consented to murmur:
"Sadie Gonorowsky."
"Did you get the kiss?"
"No ma'an."
"Do you know anything about this fight?"
"No ma'an."
"Well, then, you may go home now, and bring your mother with you
to-morrow morning."
Isidore left with a heavy heart and the enquiry was continued.
"What has Sadie been doing to you, Eva?" asked Teacher, and Eva, with
resigned mien, answered:
"All things," and then details followed. "She makes on me a snoot, she
pulls me on the bottom of my hair, she goes und takes her pencil und
gives me a stick in my face. When I was marchin' she extra takes her
shoes und steps at my legs; I got two swollen legs over her. Und
now"--here a sob--"you could to look on how she makes me biles und
shiners."
As Eva's voice droned out these many accusations, Sadie grew more
emphatic in her favourite repartee:
"It's a lie! It's a lie! It's a lie!"
"And now, Eva, will you tell me _why_ Sadie has been doing all these
naughty things?"
"Teacher, I don't know."
"Oh, yes; you do!"
"No ma'an; I don't. I could swear if I do. I kiss up to God." She
wafted a kiss towards the ceiling. "I got all times a kind feelin'
over Sadie, on'y she wouldn't to be glad on me. I seen yesterday her
little brother in the street mit Sadie und she make he shouldn't to
talk to me. My heart it breaks when she make like that; I'm got no
brother und no sister und I'm lovin' _so_ much mit my little cousin. She
goes und makes he should say nothin' und in _mine_ eyes stands tears. I
was sad."
[Illustration: ISIDORE BELCHATOSKY, THE ADONIS OF THE CLASS]
[Illustration: "I GOT TWO SWOLLEN LEGS OVER HER"]
"Well, dear, that's a shame," said Teacher, "and if you really don't
understand, go out into the assembly room and wait for me. Sadie is
going to tell me all about it."
Eva vanished, only to return with the lurid bandage in her hand and
the query:--"Can I make this wet?"
Upon receiving permission so to do she retired with her courteous
"Good-afternoon, Teacher," and her unchanged "Good-by, Sadie; I'm got
yet that kind feelin'." Truly the "pangs of disprized love" seemed
hers.
Several kinds of persuasion were practised in Room 18 during the next
five minutes. Then Sadie accepted defeat, faced the inevitable, and
began:
"It's like this: I dassent to be glad on Eva. So I want even, I dassent.
My mamma has the same mad, und my papa. My mamma she says like this:
So my papa gets sooner glad on my uncle she wouldn't to be wifes mit
him no more! _Such_ is the mad she has!"
"Why?"
"Well. Mine uncle he come out of Russia. From long he come when I was
a little bit of baby. Und he didn't to have no money for buy a house.
So my papa--he's awful kind--he gives him thousen dollers so he could
to buy. Und say, Teacher, what you think? he don't pays it back. It
_ain't_ polite you takes thousen dollers und don't pays it back."
Sadie's air, as she submitted this rule of social etiquette to Teacher's
wider knowledge, was a wondrous thing to see--so deferential was it
and yet so assured.
"So my papa he writes a letter on my uncle how he could to pay that
thousen dollers. _Goes_ months. _Comes_ no thousen dollers. So my papa
he goes on the lawyer und the lawyer he writes on my uncle a letter how
he should to pay. _Goes_ months. _Comes_ no thousen dollers." At each
repetition of these fateful words Sadie shook her serious head, pursed
up her rosy mouth, folded her hands resignedly, and sighed deeply.
Clearly this was a tale more than twice told, for the voice and manner
of Sadie were as the voice and manner of Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky, and
the recital was plagiarism--masterly and complete.
"And then?" prompted Teacher, lest the conversation languish.
"Well, my papa writes some more a letter on mine uncle. Oh-o-oh, a
awful bossy-und-mad letter. All the mad words what my papa knows he
writes on mine uncle. Und my mamma she sets by my papa's side und all
the mad words what my mamma knows she tells on my papa und he writes
them, too, on mine uncle. Mine uncle (that's Eva's papa) could to have
a fierce mad sooner he seen that bossy letter. But _goes_ two days.
_Comes_ no thousen dollers."
Here ensued a long and dramatic pause.
"Well, comes no thousen dollers. Comes nothings. On'y by night my mamma
she puts me on my bed; when comes my uncle! He comes und makes a
knopping on our door. I couldn't to tell even how he makes knopping.
I had such a scare I was green on the face, und my heart was going so
you could to hear. I'm a nervous child, Missis Bailey, und my face is
all times green sooner I gets a scare."
This last observation was a triumph of mimicry, and recalled Mrs.
Gonorowsky so vividly as to make her atmosphere of garlic and old
furniture quite perceptible. "So my mamma hears how my uncle knopps
und says 'Lemme in--lemme in.' She says ('scuse me, Teacher)--she says
'he must be' ('scuse me) 'drunk.' That's how my mamma says.
"So goes my papa by the door und says 'Who stands?' Und my uncle he
says 'Lemme in.' So-o-oh my papa he opens the door. Stands my unclemit
cheeky looks und he showed a fist on my papa. My papa has a fierce
mad sooner he seen that fist--fists is awful cheeky when somebody
ain't paid. So my papa he says ('scuse me)--it's fierce how he says,
on'y he had a mad over that fist. He says ('scuse me), 'Go to hell!'
und my uncle, what ain't paid that thousen dollers, he says just like
that to my papa. He says too ('scuse me, Teacher), 'Go to hell!' So-o-oh
then my papa hits my uncle (that's Eva's papa), und how my papa is
strong I couldn't to tell even. He pulls every morning by the
extrasizer, und he's got such a muscles! So he hits my uncle (that's
Eva's papa), und my uncle he fall und he fall und he fall--we live by
the third floor, und he fall off of the third floor by the street--und
even in falling he says like that ('scuse me, Teacher), 'Go to hell!
go to hell! go to hell!' Ain't it somethin' fierce how he says? On all
the steps he says, 'Go to hell! go to hell! go to hell!'"
Miss Bailey had listened to authoritative lectures upon "The Place and
Influence of the Teacher in Community Life," and was debating as to
whether she had better inflict her visit of remonstrance upon Mr.
Lazarus Gonorowsky, of the powerful and cultivated muscle, or upon Mr.
Nathan Gonorowsky, of the deplorable manners, when this opportunity
to bring the higher standards of living into the home was taken from
her. The house of Gonorowsky, in jagged fragments, was tested as by
fire and came forth united.
Eva was absent one morning, and Sadie presented the explanation in a
rather dirty envelope:
Dear Miss:
Excuse pliss that Eva Gonarofsky comes not on the school. We was moving
und she couldn't to find her clothes. Yurs Resptphs,
Her elders,
Nathan Gonorowsky,
Becky Ganurwoski.
"Is Eva going far away?" asked Teacher. "Will she come to this school
any more?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an, sure she comes; she lives now by my house. My
uncle he lives by my house, too. Und my aunt."
"And you're not angry with your cousin anymore?"
"Teacher, no ma'an; I'm loving mit her. She's got on now all mine best
clothes the while her mamma buys her new. My aunt buys new clothes,
too. Und my uncle."
Sadie reported this shopping epidemic so cheerily that Teacher asked
with mild surprise:
"Where are all their old things?"
"Teacher, they're burned. Und my uncle's store und his _all_ of
goods, und his house und his three sewing machines. All, all burned!"
"Oh, dear me!" said Teacher. "Your poor uncle! Now he can never pay
that thousand dollars."
Sadie regarded Teacher with puzzled eyes.
"Sure he pays. He's now 'most as rich like Van'pilt. I guess he's got
a hundred dollers. He pays all right, all right, und my papa had a
party over him: he had such a awful glad!"
"Glad on your uncle?" cried Teacher, startled into colloquialisms.
"Yiss ma'an. Und my mamma has a glad on Eva's mamma, und my gran'ma
has a glad on both of papas und both of mammas, und my gran'pa has a
glad just like my gran'ma. All, all glad!"
As Teacher walked towards Grand Street that afternoon, she met a radiant
little girl with a small and most unsteady boy in tow. She recognized
Eva and surmised the cousin whose coldness had hurt her even unto
tears.
"Well, Eva, and what little boy is this?" she asked.
And the beaming and transformed Eva answered:
"It's my little cousin. He's lovin' mit me now. Sadie, too, is lovin'.
I take him out the while it's healthy he walks, on'y he ain't so big
und he falls. Say, Teacher, it's nice when he falls. I holds him in
my hands."
And fall he did. Eva picked him up, greatly to their mutual delight,
and explained:
"He's heavy, und my this here arm ain't yet so healthy, but I hold him
in my hands the while he's cousins mit me, und over cousins I'm got
all times that kind feelin'."
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
"I guess I don't need I should go on the school," announced Algernon
Yonowsky.
"I guess you do," said his sister.
"I guess I don't need I should go on the school, neither," remarked
Percival.
"You got to go," Leah informed her mutinous brothers. "I got a permit
for you from off the Principal; he's friends mit me the while I goes
on that school when I was little. You got to go on the school, und you
got to stay on the school. It's awful nice how you learn things there."
But the prospect did not appeal to the Yonowsky twins. It seemed to
forbode restraint and, during their six tempestuous years, they had
followed their own stubborn ways and had accepted neither advice nor
rebuke from any man. The evening of the day which had seen their
birth had left Leah motherless, and her father broken of heart and of
ambition. Since then Mr. Yonowsky had grown daily more silent and
morose, and Leah had been less and less able to cope with "them devil
boys."
A room high up in a swarming tenement had been the grave of her youth
and pleasure. She was as solitary there as she could have been in a
desert, for the neighbours who had known and assisted her in the first
years of her bereavement had died or moved to that Mecca of the New
World, Harlem. And their successors were not kindly disposed towards
a family comprising a silent man, a half-grown girl, and two twin
demons who made the block a terror to the nervous and the stairs a
menace to the unwary. No one came to gossip with Leah. She was too
young to listen understandingly to older women's adventures in sickness
or domestic infelicity, and too dispirited to make any show of interest
in the toilettes or "affaires" of the younger. For what were incompetent
doctors, habit-backed dresses, wavering husbands, or impetuous lovers
to Leah Yonowsky, who had assumed all the responsibilities of a woman's
life with none of its consolations?
Of course she had, to some extent, failed in the upbringing of her
brothers, but she had always looked forward hopefully to the time when
they should be old enough to be sent to school. There they should
learn, among much other lore, to live up to the names she had selected
for them out of the book of love and of adventure which she had been
reading at the time of their baptism. During all the years of her
enslavement she had been a patron of the nearest public library, and
it had been a source of great disappointment to her that Algernon and
Percival had made no least attempt to acquire the grace of speech and
manner which she had learned to associate with those lordly titles.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10