Books: Little Citizens
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Myra Kelly >> Little Citizens
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"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 prodigally 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 mil 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."
"Why, I never heard of such a thing," gasped Miss Bailey. And Nathan
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 nut--"
"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 Thurs-day."
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
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