Books: Little Citizens
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Myra Kelly >> Little Citizens
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"Miss Bailey is a awful nice Teacher," she began one afternoon. "I
never in my world seen no nicer teacher. On'y she's fancy."
"I seen how she's fancy," Yetta agreed. "She's got her hair done fancy
mit combs und her waist is from fancy goods."
"Yes, she's fancy," Eva continued. "She likes you should put you on
awful clean. Say, what you think, she sends a boy home once--mit notes
even--the while he puts him on mit dirty sweaters. She says like this:
'Sweaters what you wears by nights und by days ain't stylish fer
school.' Und I guess she knows what is stylish. I ain't never in my
world seen no stylisher teacher."
"I don't know be buttoned-in-back dresses the style this year," ventured
Yetta. The same misgiving had visited Eva, but she thrust it loyally
from her.
"They're the latest," she declared.
"It's good they're the style," sighed Yetta. "Mine dress is a
buttoned-in-back-dress, too. On'y I loses me the buttons from off of
it. I guess maybe I sews 'em on again. Teacher could to have, maybe,
kind feelings, sooner she sees how I puts me on mit buttons on mine
back und--"
"Sure could she!" interrupted the sustaining Eva.
"Could she have kind feelings sooner I puts me on clean mit buttons
on mine back und makes all things what is nice fer me? Oh, Eva, could
she have feelin's over me?"
"Sure could she," cried Eva. "Sooner you makes all them things she
could to make you, maybe, monitors off of somethings."
"Be you monitors?" demanded Yetta in sudden awe.
"Off of pencils. Ain't you seen how I gives 'em out and takes 'em up?
She gives me too a piece of paper mit writings on it. Sooner I shows
it on the big boys what stands by the door in the yard, sooner they
lets me I should come right up by Teacher's room. You could to look
on it." And, after unfolding countless layers of paper and of
cheese-cloth handkerchief, she exhibited her talisman. It was an
ordinary visiting card with a line of writing under its neatly engraved
"Miss Constance Bailey," and Yetta regarded it with envying eyes.
"What does it says?" she asked.
"Well," admitted Eva with reluctant candour, "I couldn't to read them
words but I guess it says I should come all places what I wants the
while I'm good girls."
"Can you go all places where you wants mit it?"
"Sure could you."
"On theaytres?"
"Sure."
"On the Central Park?"
"Sure."
"On the country? Oh I guess you couldn't to go on the country mit it?"
"Sure could you. All places what you wants you could to go sooner
Missis Bailey writes on papers how you is good girls."
"Oh, how I likes she should write like that fer me. Oh, how I likes
I should be monitors off of somethings."
"I tell you what you want to do: wash your hands!" cried Eva, with
sudden inspiration. "She's crazy for what is clean. You wash your hands
und your face. She could to have feelin's."
For some mornings thereafter Yetta was clean--and late. Miss Bailey
overlooked the cleanliness, but noted the tardiness, and treated the
offender with some of "the mads 'out sayin' nothings" which Sadie had
predicted. Still, the "cop mit buttons und clubs" did not appear,
though Yetta lived in constant terror and expected that every opening
of the door would disclose that dread avenger.
On the fourth morning of her ablutions Yetta reached Room 18 while a
reading lesson was absorbing Teacher's attention:
"Powers above!" ejaculated Patrick Brennan, with all the ostentatious
virtue of the recently reformed, "here's that new kid late again!"
The new kid, in copious tears, encountered one of the
"long-mad-proud-looks" and cringed.
"Why are you late?" demanded Miss Bailey.
"I washes me the face," whimpered the culprit, and the eyes with which
she regarded Eva Gonorowsky added tearfully: "Villain behold your
work!"
[Illustration: "I WASHES ME THE FACE"]
[Illustration: AIN'T YOU NEVER COMIN' ON THE SCHOOL FOR TO SEE MINE
TEACHER?]
"So I see, but that is no reason for being late. You have been late
twice a day, morning and afternoon, for the last three days and your
only excuse has been that you were washing your face. Which is no
excuse at all."
"I tells you 'scuse," pleaded Yetta. "I tells you 'scuse."
"Very well, I'll forgive you to-day. I suppose I must tolerate you."
"No-o-oh ma'an, Teacher, Missis Bailey, don't you do it," screamed
Yetta in sudden terror. "I'd have a awful frightened over it. I swear,
I kiss up to God, I wouldn't never no more come late on the school.
I don't needs nobody should make nothings like that mit me."
"Oh, it's not so bad," Miss Bailey reassured her. "And you must expect
something to happen if you _will_ come late to school for no reason at
all."
And Yetta was too disturbed by the danger so narrowly escaped to tell
this charming but most strangely ignorant young person that the washing
of a face was a most time-consuming process. Yetta's one-roomed home
was on the top floor, the sixth, and the only water supply was in the
yard. Since the day her father had packed "assorted notions" into a
black and shiny box and had set out to seek his very elusive fortunes
in the country, Yetta had toiled three times a morning with a tin pail
full of water. This formed the family's daily store and there was no
surplus to be squandered. But to win Teacher's commendation she had
bent her tired energies to another trip and, behold, her reward was
a scolding!
Eva Gonorowsky was terribly distressed, and the plaintive sobs which,
from time to time, rent the bosom of Yetta's dingy plaid dress were
as so many blows upon her adviser's bruised conscience. Desperately
she cast about for some device by which Teacher's favour might be
reclaimed and all jubilantly she imparted it to Yetta.
"Say," she whispered, "I tell you what you want to do. You leave your
mamma wash your dress."
"I don't know would she like it. I washes me the face fer her und she
has a mad on me."
"She'd like it, all right, all right; ain't I tell you how she is crazy
fer what is clean? You get your dress washed and it will look awful
diff'rent. I done it und she had a glad."
Now a mamma who supports a family by the making of buttonholes, for
one hundred of which she receives nine cents, has little time for
washing, and Yetta determined, unaided and unadvised, to be her own
laundress. She made endless trips with her tin-pail from the sixth
floor to the yard and back again, she begged a piece of soap from the
friendly "janitor lady" and set valiantly to work. And Eva's prophecy
was fulfilled. The dress looked "awful diff'rent" when it had dried
to half its already scant proportions. From various sources Yetta
collected six buttons of widely dissimilar design and colour and, with
great difficulty since her hands were puffed and clumsy from long
immersion in strong suds, she affixed them to the back of the dress
and fell into her corner of the family couch to dream of Miss Bailey's
surprise and joy when the blended plaid should be revealed unto her.
Surely, if there were any gratitude in the hearts of teachers, Yetta
should be, ere the sinking of another sun, "monitors off of somethings."
That Teacher was surprised, no one who saw the glance of puzzled inquiry
with which she greeted the entrance of the transformed Yetta, could
doubt. That she had a glad, Yetta, who saw the stare replaced by a
smile of quick recognition, was proudly assured. Eva Gonorowsky shone
triumphant.
"Ain't I tell you?" she whispered jubilantly as she made room upon her
little bench and drew Yetta down beside her. "Ain't I tell you how
she's crazy fer what is clean? Und I ain't never seen nothings what
is clean like you be. You smells off of soap even."
It was not surprising, for Yetta had omitted the rinsing which some
laundresses advise. She had wasted none of the janitor lady's gift.
It was all in the meshes of the flannel dress to which it lent, in
addition to its reassuring perfume, a smooth damp slipperiness most
pleasing to the touch.
The athletic members of the First Reader Class were made familiar with
this quality before the day was over, for, at the slightest exertion
of its wearer, the rain-bow dress sprang, chrysalis-like, widely open
up the back. Then were the combined efforts of two of the strongest
members of the class required to drag the edges into apposition while
Eva guided the buttons to their respective holes and Yetta "let go of
her breath" with an energy which defeated its purpose.
These interruptions of the class routine were so inevitable a
consequence of Swedish exercises and gymnastics that Miss Bailey was
forced to sacrifice Yetta's physical development to the general
discipline and to anchor her in quiet waters during the frequent periods
of drill. When she had been in time she sat at Teacher's desk in a
glow of love and pride. When she had been late she stood in a corner
near the book-case and repented of her sin. And, despite all her
exertions and Eva's promptings, she was still occasionally late.
Miss Bailey was seriously at a loss for some method of dealing with
a child so wistful of eyes and so damaging of habits. A teacher's
standing on the books of the Board of Education depends to a degree
upon the punctuality and regularity of attendance to which she can
inspire her class, and Yetta was reducing the average to untold depths.
"What happened to-day?" Teacher asked one morning for the third time
in one week, and through Yetta's noisy repentance she heard hints of
"store" and "mamma."
"Your mamma sent you to the store?" she interpreted and Yetta nodded
dolefully.
"And did you give her my message about that last week? Did you tell
her that she _must_ send you to school before nine o'clock?" Again
Yetta nodded, silent and resigned, evidently a creature bound upon the
wheel, heart broken but uncomplaining.
"Well, then," began Miss Bailey, struggling to maintain her just
resentment, "you can tell her now that I want to see her. Ask her to
come to school to-morrow morning."
"Teacher, she couldn't. She ain't got time. Und she don't know where
is the school neither."
"That's nonsense. You live only two blocks away. She sees it every
time she passes the corner."
"She don't never pass no corner. She don't never come on the street.
My mamma ain't got time. She sews."
"But she can't sew always. She goes out, doesn't she, to do shopping
and to see her friends?"
"She ain't got friends. She ain't got time she should have 'em. She
sews all times. Sooner I lays me und the babies on the bed by night
my mamma sews. Und sooner I stands up in mornings my mamma sews. All,
_all_, ALL times she sews."
"And where is your father? Doesn't he help?"
"Teacher, he's on the country. He is pedlar mans. He walk und he walk
und he walk mit all things what is stylish in a box. On'y nobody wants
they should buy somethings from off of my papa. No ma'an, Missis Bailey,
that ain't how they makes mit my poor papa. They goes und makes dogs
should bite him on the legs. That's how he tells in a letter what he
writes on my mamma. Comes no money in the letter und me und my mamma
we got it pretty hard. We got three babies."
"I'm going home with you this afternoon," announced Miss Bailey in a
voice which suggested neither mads nor clubs nor violence.
After that visit things were a shade more bearable in the home of the
absent pedlar, and one-half of Yetta's ambition was achieved. Teacher
had a glad! There was a gentleness almost apologetic in her attitude
and the hour after which an arrival should be met with a
long-proud-mad-look was indefinitely postponed. And, friendly relations
being established, Yetta's craving for monitorship grew with the passing
days.
When she expressed to Teacher her willingness to hold office she was
met with unsatisfying but baffling generalities.
"But surely I shall let you be monitor some day. I have monitors for
nearly everything under the sun, now, but perhaps I shall think of
something for you."
"I likes," faltered Yetta; "I likes I should be monitor off of flowers."
"But Nathan Spiderwitz takes care of the window boxes. He won't let
even me touch them. Think what he would do to you."
"Then I likes I should be monitors to set by your place when you goes
by the Principal's office."
"But Patrick Brennan always takes care of the children when I am not
in the room."
"He marches first by the line too. He's two monitors."
"He truly is," agreed Miss Bailey. "Well, I shall let you try that
some day."
It was a most disastrous experiment. The First Reader Class, serenely
good under the eye of Patrick Brennan, who wore one of the discarded
brass buttons of his sire pinned to the breast of his shirt-waist,
found nothing to fear or to obey in his supplanter, and Miss Bailey
returned to her kingdom to find it in an uproar and her regent in
tears.
"I don't likes it. I don't likes it," Yetta wailed. "All the boys shows
a fist on me. All the girls makes a snoot on me. All the childrens say
cheek on me. I don't likes it. I don't likes it."
"Then you sha'n't do it again," Teacher comforted her. "You needn't
be a monitor if you don't wish."
"But I likes I shall be monitors. On'y not that kind from monitors."
"If you can think of something you would enjoy I shall let you try
again. But it must be something, dear, that no one is doing for me."
But Yetta could think of nothing until one afternoon when she was
sitting at Teacher's desk during a Swedish drill. All about her were
Teacher's things. Her large green blotter, her "from gold" inkstand
and pens, her books where Fairies lived. Miss Bailey was standing
directly in front of the desk and encouraging the First Reader Class--by
command and example--to strenuous waving of arms and bending of bodies.
"Forward bend!" commanded, and bent, Miss Bailey and her
buttoned-in-back-waist followed the example of less fashionable models,
shed its pearl buttons in a shower upon the smooth blotter and gave
Yetta the inspiration for which she had been waiting. She gathered the
buttons, extracted numerous pins from posts of trust in her attire,
and when Miss Bailey had returned to her chair, gently set about
repairing the breach.
"What is it?" asked Miss Bailey. Yetta, her mouth full of pins,
exhibited the buttons.
"Dear me! All those off!" exclaimed Teacher. "It was good of you to
arrange it for me. And now will you watch it? You'll tell me if it
should open again?"
Yetta had then disposed the pins to the best advantage and was free
to voice her triumphant:
"Oh, I knows _now_ how I wants I should be monitors! Teacher,
mine dear Teacher, could I be monitors off of the back of your dress?"
"But surely, you may," laughed Teacher, and Yetta entered straightway
into the heaven of fulfilled desire.
None of Eva's descriptions of the joys of monitorship had done justice
to the glad reality. After common mortals had gone home at three
o'clock, Room 18 was transformed into a land where only monitors and
love abounded. And the new monitor was welcomed by the existing staff,
for she had supplanted no one, and was so palpitatingly happy that
Patrick Brennan forgave her earlier usurpation of his office and Nathan
Spiderwitz bestowed upon her the freedom of the window boxes.
"Ever when you likes you should have a crawley bug from off of the
flowers; you tell me und I'll catch one fer you. I got lots. I don't
need 'em all."
"I likes I shall have one now," ventured Yetta, and Nathan ensnared
one and put it in her hand where it "crawlied" most pleasingly until
Morris Mogilewsky begged it for his Gold-Fish in their gleaming "fish
theaytre." Then Eva shared with her friend and protege the delight of
sharpening countless blunted and bitten pencils upon a piece of
sand-paper.
"Say," whispered Yetta as they worked busily and dirtily, "Say, I'm
monitors now. On'y I ain't got no papers."
"You ask her. She'll give you one."
"I'd have a shamed the while she gives me und my mamma whole bunches
of things already. She could to think, maybe, I'm a greedy. But I needs
that paper awful much. I needs I shall go on the country for see mine
papa."
"No, she don't thinks you is greedy. Ain't you monitors on the back
of her waist? You should come up here 'fore the childrens comes for
see how her buttons stands. You go und tell her you needs that paper."
Very diplomatically Yetta did. "Teacher," she began,
"buttoned-in-back-dresses is stylish fer ladies."
"Yes, honey," Miss Bailey acquiesced, "so I thought when I saw that
you wear one."
"On'y they opens," Yetta went on, all flushed by this high tribute to
her correctness. "All times they opens, yours und mine, und that makes
us shamed feelings."
Again Miss Bailey acquiesced.
"So-o-oh," pursued Yetta, with fast beating heart; "don't you wants
you should give me somethings from paper mit writings on it so I could
come on your room all times for see how is your buttoned-in-back-dresses?"
"A beautiful idea," cried Teacher. "We'll take care of one another's
buttons. I'll write the card for you now. You know what to do with it?"
"Yiss ma'an. Eva tells me all times how I could come where I wants
sooner you writes on papers how I is good girls."
"I'll write nicer things than that on yours," said Miss Bailey. "You
are one of the best little girls in the world. So useful to your mother
and to the babies and to me! Oh yes, I'll write beautiful things on
your card, my dear."
When the Grand Street car had borne Miss Bailey away Yetta turned to
Eva with determination in her eye and the "paper mit writings" in her
hand.
"I'm goin' on the country for see my papa und birds und flowers und
all them things what Teacher tells stands in the country. I need I
should see them."
"Out your mamma?" Eva remonstrated.
"'Out, 'out my mamma. She ain't got no time for go on no country. I
don't needs my mamma should go by my side. Ain't you said I could to
go all places what I wants I should go, sooner Teacher gives me papers
mit writings?"
"Sure could you," Eva repeated solemnly. "There ain't no place where
you couldn't to go mit it."
"I'll go on the country," said Yetta.
That evening Mrs. Aaronsohn joined her neighbours upon the doorstep
for the first time in seven years. For Yetta was lost. The neighbours
were comforting but not resourceful. They all knew Yetta; knew her to
be sensible and mature for her years even according to the exacting
standard of the East Side. She would presently return, they assured
the distraught Mrs. Aaronsohn, and pending that happy event they
entertained her with details of the wanderings and home comings of
their own offspring. But Yetta did not come. The reminiscent mothers
talked themselves into silence, the deserted babies cried themselves
to sleep. Mrs. Aaronsohn carried them up to bed--she hardly knew the
outer aspect of her own door--and returned to the then deserted doorstep
to watch for her first-born. One by one the lights were extinguished,
the sewing-machines stopped, and the restless night of the quarter
closed down. She was afraid to go even as far as the corner in search
of the fugitive. She could not have recognized the house which held
her home.
All her hopes were centered in the coming of Miss Bailey. When the
children of happier women were setting out for school she demanded and
obtained from one of them safe conduct to Room 18. But Teacher, when
Eva Gonorowsky had interpreted the tale of Yetta's disappearance, could
suggest no explanation.
"She was with me until half-past three. Then she and Eva walked with
me to the corner. Did she tell you, dear, where she was going?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an. She says she goes on the country for see her
papa und birds und flowers."
When this was put into Jewish for Mrs. Aaronsohn she was neither
comforted nor reassured. Miss Bailey was puzzled but undismayed. "We'll
find her," she promised the now tearful mother. "I shall go with you
to look for her. Say that in Jewish for me, Eva."
The Principal lent a substitute. Room 18 was deserted by its sovereign:
the pencils were deserted by their monitor: and Mrs. Aaronsohn, Miss
Bailey and Eva Gonorowsky, official interpreter, set out for the nearest
drug-store where a telephone might be. They inspected several unclaimed
children before, in the station of a precinct many weary blocks away,
they came upon Yetta. She was more dirty and bedraggled than she had
ever been, but the charm of her manner was unchanged and, suspended
about her neck, she wore a policeman's button.
"One of the men brought her in here at ten o'clock last night," the
man behind the blotter informed Miss Bailey, while Mrs. Aaronsohn
showered abuse and caress upon the wanderer. "She was straying around
the Bowery and she gave us a great game of talk about her father bein'
a bird. I guess he is."
"My papa und birds is on the country. I likes I shall go there," said
Yetta from the depths of her mother's embrace.
"There, that's what she tells everyone. She has a card there with a
Christian name and no address on it. I was going to try to identify
her by looking for this Miss Constance Bailey."
"That is my name. I am her teacher. I gave her the card because--"
"I'm monitors. I should go all places what I wants the while I'm good
girls und Teacher writes it on pieces from paper. On'y I ain't want
I should come on no cops' house. I likes I should go on the country
for see my papa und birds und flowers. I says like that on a cop--I
shows him the paper even--und he makes I shall come here on the cops'
house where my papa don't stands und birds don't stands und flowers
don't stands."
"When next you want to go to the country," said Teacher, "you ought
to let us know. You have frightened us all dreadfully and that is a
very naughty thing to do. If you ever run away again I shall have to
keep the promise I made to you long and long ago when you used to come
late to school. I shall have to tolerate you."
But Yetta was undismayed. "I ain't got no more a scare over that,"
said she with a soft smile towards the brass-buttoned person behind
the blotter. "Und I ain't got no scare over cops neither; I never in
mine world seen how they makes all things what is polite mit me und
gives me I should eat."
"Well," cautioned Teacher "you must never do it again," and turned her
attention to the very erratic spelling of Sergeant Moloney's official
record of the flight of Yetta Aaronsohn.
"Say," whispered Eva, and there was a tinge of jealousy in her soft
voice; "say, who gives you the button like Patrick Brennan's got?"
"THE COP," answered Yetta, pointing a dirty but reverential finger
towards her new divinity. "I guess maybe I turns me the dress around.
Buttoned-in-front-mit-from-gold-button-suits is awful stylish. He's
got 'em."
"Think shame how you says," cried Eva, with loyal eyes upon the neatly
buttoned and all unsuspecting back of Miss Bailey, "Ain't you seen how
is Teacher's back?"
"Ain't I monitors off of it?" demanded Yetta. "Sure I know how is it.
On'y I don't know be they so stylish. Cops ain't got 'em und, oh Eva,
Cops is somethin' grand! I turns me the dress around."
THE TOUCH OF NATURE
"There is," wrote the authorities with a rare enthusiasm, "no greater
power for the mental, moral and physical uplifting of the Child than
a knowledge and an appreciation of the Beauties of Nature. It is the
duty and the privilege of the teacher to bring this elevating influence
into the lives of the children for whom she is responsible."
There are not many of the Beauties of Nature to be found on the lower
East Side of New York, and Miss Bailey found this portion of her duty
full of difficulty. Excursions were out of the question, and she
discovered that specimens conveyed but crudely erroneous ideas to
the minds of her little people. She was growing discouraged at the
halting progress of the First Reader Class in Natural Science, when,
early in October, the Principal ushered into Room 18, Miss Eudora
Langdon, Lecturer on Biology and Nature Study in a Western university, a
shining light in the world of education, and an orator in her own
conceit.
"I shall leave Miss Langdon with you for a short time, Miss Bailey,"
said the Principal when the introductions had been accomplished. "She
is interested in the questions which are troubling you, and would like
to speak to the children if you have no objection."
"Surely none," replied Miss Bailey; and when the Principal had retired
to interview parents and book-agents, she went on: "I find it difficult
to make Nature Study real to the children. They regard it all as
fairy-lore."
"Ah, yes," the visitor admitted; "it does require some skill. You
should appeal to their sense of the beautiful."
"But I greatly fear," said Teacher sadly, "that the poor babies know
very little about beauty."
"Then develop the ideal," cried Miss Langdon, and the eyes behind her
glasses shone with zeal. "Begin this very day. Should you like me to
open up a topic?"
"If you will be so very good," said Teacher, with some covert amusement,
and Miss Langdon, laying her note-book on the desk, turned to address
the class. Immediately Nathan Spiderwitz, always on the alert for bad
news, started a rumour which spread from desk to desk--"Miss Bailey
could to be goin' away. This could be a new teacher."
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