Chapter 5

There was one spectator of this drama, who, understanding no word nor incident therein, yet missed no shade of the many emotions which had stirred the light face of his lady. Towards the front of the room sat Morris Mogilewsky, with every nerve tuned to Teacher's, and with an appreciation of the situation in which the other children had no share. On the afternoon of one of those dreary days of waiting for the evil which had now come, Teacher had endeavoured to explain the nature and possible result of this ordeal to her favourite. It was clear to him now that she was troubled, and he held the large and unaccustomed presence of the comp'ny mit whiskers responsible. Countless generations of ancestors had followed and fostered the instinct which now led Morris to propitiate an angry power. Luckily, he was prepared with an offering of a suitable nature. He had meant to enjoy it for yet a few days, and then to give it to Teacher. She was such a sensible person about presents. One might give her one's most cherished possession with a brave and cordial heart, for on each Friday afternoon she returned the gifts she had received during the week. And this with no abatement of gratitude.

Morris rose stealthily, crept forward, and placed a bright blue bromo-seltzer bottle in the fat hand which hung over the back of the chair of state. The hand closed instinctively as, with dawning curiosity, the Honourable Timothy studied the small figure at his side. It began in a wealth of loosely curling hair which shaded a delicate face, very pointed as to chin and monopolized by a pair of dark eyes, sad and deep and beautiful. A faded blue "jumper" was buttoned tightly across the narrow chest; frayed trousers were precariously attached to the "jumper," and impossible shoes and stockings supplemented the trousers. Glancing from boy to bottle, the "comp'ny mit whiskers" asked:

"What's this for?"

"For you."

"What's in it?"

"A present."

Mr. O'Shea removed the cork and proceeded to draw out incredible quantities of absorbent cotton. When there was no more to come, a faint tinkle sounded within the blue depths, and Mr. O'Shea, reversing the bottle, found himself possessed of a trampled and disfigured sleeve link of most palpable brass.

"It's from gold," Morris assured him. "You puts it in your--'scuse me--shirt. Wish you health to wear it."

"Thank you," said the Honourable Tim, and there was a tiny break in the gloom which had enveloped him. And then, with a quick memory of the note and of his anger:

"Miss Bailey, who is this young man?"

And Teacher, of whose hobbies Morris was one, answered warmly: "That is Morris Mogilewsky, the best of boys. He takes care of the gold-fish, and does all sorts of things for me. Don't you, dear?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an," Morris answered.

"I'm lovin' much mit you. I gives presents on the company over you."

"Aint he rather big to speak such broken English?" asked Mr. O'Shea. "I hope you remember that it is part of your duty to stamp out the dialect."

"Yes, I know," Miss Bailey answered. "But Morris has been in America for so short a time. Nine months, is it not?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an. I comes out of Russia," responded Morris, on the verge of tears and with his face buried in Teacher's dress.

Now Mr. O'Shea had his prejudices--strong and deep. He had been given jurisdiction over that particular district because it was his native heath, and the Board of Education considered that he would be more in sympathy with the inhabitants than a stranger. The truth was absolutely the reverse. Because he had spent his early years in a large old house on East Broadway, because he now saw his birthplace changed to a squalid tenement, and the happy hunting grounds of his youth grown ragged and foreign--swarming with strange faces and noisy with strange tongues--Mr. O'Shea bore a sullen grudge against the usurping race.

He resented the caressing air with which Teacher held the little hand placed so confidently within her own and he welcomed the opportunity of gratifying his still ruffled temper and his racial antagonism at the same time. He would take a rise out of this young woman about her little Jew. She would be comforted later on. Mr. O'Shea rather fancied himself in the role of comforter, when the sufferer was neither old nor ill-favoured. And so he set about creating the distress which he would later change to gratitude and joy. Assuredly the Honourable Timothy had a well-developed sense of humour.

"His English is certainly dreadful," remarked the voice of authority, and it was not an English voice, nor is O'Shea distinctively an English name. "Dreadful. And, by the way, I hope you are not spoiling these youngsters. You must remember that you are fitting them for the battle of life. Don't coddle your soldiers. Can you reconcile your present attitude with discipline?"

"With Morris--yes," Teacher answered. "He is gentle and tractable beyond words."

"Well, I hope you're right," grunted Mr. O'Shea "but don't coddle them."

And so the incident closed. The sleeve link was tucked, before Morris's yearning eyes, into the reluctant pocket of the wide white waistcoat, and Morris returned to his place. He found his reader and the proper page, and the lesson went on with brisk serenity: real on the children's part, but bravely assumed on Teacher's. Child after child stood up; read; sat down again; and it came to be the duty of Bertha Binderwitz to read the entire page of which the others had each read a line. She began jubilantly, but soon stumbled, hesitated, and wailed: "Stands a fierce word. I don't know what it is," and Teacher turned to write the puzzling word upon the blackboard.

Morris's heart stopped with a sickening suddenness and then rushed madly on again. He had a new and dreadful duty to perform. All his mother's counsel, all his father's precepts told him that it was his duty. Yet fear held him in his little seat behind his little desk, while his conscience insisted on this unalterable decree of the social code: "So somebody's clothes is wrong it's polite you says 'scuse' und tells it out."

And here was Teacher whom he dearly loved, whose ideals of personal adornment extended to full sets of buttons on jumpers and to laces in both shoes, here was his immaculate lady fair in urgent need of assistance and advice, and all because she had on that day inaugurated a delightfully vigorous exercise for which, architecturally, she was not designed.

There was yet room for hope that some one else would see the breach and brave the danger. But no. The visitor sat stolidly in the chair of state, the Principal sat serenely beside him, the children sat each in his own little place, behind his own little desk, keeping his own little eyes on his own little book. No. Morris's soul cried with Hamlet's:

"_The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right_!"

Up into the quiet air went his timid hand. Teacher, knowing him in his more garrulous moods, ignored the threatened interruption of Bertha's spirited resume, but the windmill action of the little arm attracted the Honourable Tim's attention.

"The best of boys wants you," he suggested, and Teacher perforce asked:

"Well, Morris, what is it?"

Not until he was on his feet did the Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl, appreciate the enormity of the mission he had undertaken. The other children began to understand, and watched his struggle for words and breath with sympathy or derision, as their natures prompted. But there are no words in which one may politely mention ineffective safety-pins to one's glass of fashion. Morris's knees trembled queerly, his breathing grew difficult, and Teacher seemed a very great way off as she asked again:

"Well, what is it, dear?"

Morris panted a little, smiled weakly, and then sat down. Teacher was evidently puzzled, the "Comp'ny" alert, the Principal uneasy.

"Now, Morris," Teacher remonstrated, "you must tell me what you want."

But Morris had deserted his etiquette and his veracity, and murmured only:

"Nothings."

"Just wanted to be noticed," said the Honourable Tim. "It is easy to spoil them." And he watched the best of boys rather closely, for a habit of interrupting reading lessons, wantonly and without reason, was a trait in the young of which he disapproved.

When this disapprobation manifested itself in Mr. O'Shea's countenance, the loyal heart of Morris interpreted it as a new menace to his sovereign. No later than yesterday she had warned them of the vital importance of coherence. "Every one knows," she had said, "that only common little boys and girls come apart. No one ever likes them," and the big stranger was even now misjudging her.

Again his short arm agitated the quiet air. Again his trembling legs upheld a trembling boy. Again authority urged. Again Teacher asked:

"Well, Morris, what is it, dear?"

All this was as before, but not as before was poor harassed Miss Bailey's swoop down the aisle, her sudden taking of Morris's troubled little face between her soft hands, the quick near meeting with her kind eyes, the note of pleading in her repetition:

"What do you want, Morris?"

He was beginning to answer when it occurred to him that the truth might make her cry. There was an unsteadiness about her upper lip which seemed to indicate the possibility. Suddenly he found that he no longer yearned for words in which to tell her of her disjointment, but for something else--anything else--to say.

His miserable eyes escaped from hers and wandered to the wall in desperate search for conversation. There was no help in the pictures, no inspiration in the plaster casts, but on the blackboard he read, "Tuesday, January twenty-first, 1902." Only the date, but he must make it serve. With Teacher close beside him, with the hostile eye of the Honourable Tim upon him, hedged round about by the frightened or admiring regard of the First-Reader Class, Morris blinked rapidly, swallowed resolutely, and remarked:

"Teacher, this year's Nineteen-hundred-and-two," and knew that all was over.

The caressing clasp of Teacher's hands grew into a grip of anger. The countenance of Mr. O'Shea took on the beatified expression of the prophet who has found honour and verification in his own country.

"The best of boys has his off days and this is one of them," he remarked.

"Morris," said Teacher, "did you stop a reading lesson to tell me that? Do you think I don't know what the year is? I'm ashamed of you."

Never had she spoken thus. If the telling had been difficult to Morris when she was "glad on him," it was impossible now that she was a prey to such evident "mad feelings." And yet he must make some explanation. So he murmured: "Teacher, I tells you 'scuse. I know you knows what year stands, on'y it's polite I tells you something, und I had a fraid."

"And so you bothered your Teacher with that nonsense," said Tim. "You're a nice boy!"

Morris's eyes were hardly more appealing than Teacher's as the two culprits, for so they felt themselves, turned to their judge.

"Morris is a strange boy," Miss Bailey explained. "He can't be managed by ordinary methods--"

"And extraordinary methods don't seem to work to-day," Mr. O'Shea interjected.

"--and I think," Teacher continued, "that it might be better not to press the point."

"Oh, if you have no control over him--" Mr. O'Shea was beginning pleasantly, when the Principal suggested:

"You'd better let us hear what he has to say, Miss Bailey; make him understand that you are master here." And Teacher, with a heart-sick laugh at the irony of this advice in the presence of the Associate Superintendent, turned to obey.

But Morris would utter no words but these, dozens of times repeated: "I have a fraid." Miss Bailey coaxed, bribed, threatened and cajoled; shook him surreptitiously, petted him openly. The result was always the same: "It's polite I tells you something out, on'y I had a fraid."

"But, Morris, dear, of what?" cried Teacher. "Are you afraid of me? Stop crying now and answer. Are you afraid of Miss Bailey?"

"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an."

"Are you afraid of the Principal?"

"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an."

"Are you afraid"--with a slight pause, during which a native hue of honesty was foully done to death--"of the kind gentleman we are all so glad to see?"

"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an."

"Well, then, what is the matter with you? Are you sick? Don't you think you would like to go home to your mother?"

"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an; I ain't sick. I tells you 'scuse."

The repeated imitation of a sorrowful goat was too much for the Honourable Tim.

"Bring that boy to me," he commanded. "I'll show you how to manage refractory and rebellious children."

With much difficulty and many assurances that the gentleman was not going to hurt him, Miss Bailey succeeded in untwining Morris's legs from the supports of the desk and in half carrying, half leading him up to the chair of state. An ominous silence had settled over the room. Eva Gonorowsky was weeping softly, and the redoubtable Isidore Applebaum was stiffened in a frozen calm.

"Morris," began the Associate Superintendent in his most awful tones, "will you tell me why you raised your hand? Come here, sir." Teacher urged him gently, and like dog to heel, he went. He halted within a pace or two of Mr. O'Shea, and lifted a beseeching face towards him.

"I couldn't to tell nothing out," said he. "I tells you 'scuse. I'm got a fraid."

The Honourable Tim lunged quickly and caught the terrified boy preparatory to shaking him, but Morris escaped and fled to his haven of safety--his Teacher's arms. When Miss Bailey felt the quick clasp of the thin little hands, the heavy beating of the over-tried heart, and the deep convulsive sobs, she turned on the Honourable Timothy O'Shea and spoke:

"I must ask you to leave this room at once," she announced. The Principal started, and then sat back. Teacher's eyes were dangerous, and the Honourable Tim might profit by a lesson. "You've frightened the child until he can't breathe. I can do nothing with him while you remain. The examination is ended. You may go."

Now Mr. O'Shea saw he had gone a little too far in his effort to create the proper dramatic setting for his clemency. He had not expected the young woman to "rise" quite so far and high. His deprecating half-apology, half-eulogy, gave Morris the opportunity he craved.

"Teacher." he panted; "I wants to whisper mit you in the ear."

With a dexterous movement he knelt upon her lap and tore out his solitary safety-pin. He then clasped her tightly and made his explanation. He began in the softest of whispers, which increased in volume as it did in interest, so that he reached the climax at the full power of his boy soprano voice.

"Teacher, Missis Bailey, I know you know what year stands. On'y it's polite I tells you something, und I had a fraid the while the comp'ny mit the whiskers sets und rubbers. But, Teacher, it's like this: your jumper's sticking out und you could to take mine safety-pin."

He had understood so little of all that had passed that he was beyond being surprised by the result of this communication. Miss Bailey had gathered him into her arms and had cried in a queer helpless way. And as she cried she had said over and over again: "Morris, how could you? Oh, how could you, dear? How _could_ you?"

The Principal and "the comp'ny mit whiskers" had looked solemnly at one another for a struggling moment, and had then broken into laughter, long and loud, until the visiting authority was limp and moist. The children waited in polite uncertainty, but when Miss Bailey, after some indecision, had contributed a wan smile, which later grew into a shaky laugh, the First-Reader Class went wild.

Then the Honourable Timothy arose to say good-by. He reiterated his praise of the singing and reading, the blackboard work and the moral tone. An awkward pause ensued, during which the Principal engaged the young Gonorowskys in impromptu conversation. The Honourable Tim crossed over to Miss Bailey's side and steadied himself for a great effort.

"Teacher," he began meekly, "I tells you 'scuse. This sort of thing makes a man feel like a bull in a china shop. Do you think the little fellow will shake hands with me? I was really only joking."

"But surely he will," said Miss Bailey, as she glanced down at the tangle of dark curls resting against her breast. "Morris, dear, aren't you going to say good-by to the gentleman?"

Morris relaxed one hand from its grasp on his lady and bestowed it on Mr. O'Shea.

"Good by," said he gently. "I gives you presents, from gold presents, the while you're friends mit Teacher. I'm loving much mit her too."

At this moment the Principal turned, and Mr. O'Shea, in a desperate attempt to retrieve his dignity, began: "As to class management and discipline--"

But the Principal was not to be deceived.

"Don't you think, Mr. O'Shea," said he, "that you and I had better leave the management of the little ones to the women? You have noticed, perhaps, that this is Nature's method."

WHEN A MAN'S WIDOWED

It was a quarter past nine and Miss Bailey was calling the roll, an undertaking which, after months of daily practice, was still formidable. Beginning with Abraham Abrahamowsky and continuing through the alphabet to Solomon Zaracheck, the roll-call of the First-Reader Class was full of stumbling blocks and pitfalls. Teacher insisted upon absolute silence during the five minutes thus consumed, and so it chanced that the excitement of Miss Blake, bursting into Room 18 at this particular time, was thrown into strong relief against the prevailing peace.

"Miss Bailey," began the ruffled sovereign of the room across the hall, "did the Principal speak to you about one of my boys being put back into your grade?"

"Oh, yes; some weeks ago."

"Well, he has been absent ever since, but he turned up this morning. Are you ready to take him now?"

"But of course--How old is he?"

"Nearly seven. Too old for your grade and too advanced, but the Principal wants you to have him because my boys laugh at him. His mother is dead, his sisters in an orphan asylum, and we thought that your little girls might have a civilizing influence over him."

"Perhaps they may," Teacher cheerfully acquiesced. "Eva Gonorowsky alone would civilize a whole tribe of savages. Will you bring him to me?"

The door of Room 17 was not quite closed, and from behind it came sounds of talking and of laughter. Miss Blake threw a few words upon the turmoil, and silence immediately ensued. Then said she: "Isidore Diamantstein, come here," and the only result was a slight titter.

"Abie Fishhandler," she next commanded, "bring Diamantstein to Miss Bailey's room."

The tittering increased and to it were added a scuffle and a sleepily fretful "Lemme be." A heavy footstep crossed the hall and the stalwart Abie Fishhandler stalked into Room 18, bearing the new boy in his arms. From his dusty unlaced shoes to his jungle of gleaming red hair, Isidore Diamantstein was inert, dirty, and bedraggled.

"Oh, let him stand!" cried Miss Blake sharply. "Here, Diamantstein, what's the matter with you? This is Miss Bailey, your new teacher."

"How do you do, Isidore?" said Miss Bailey, as she stooped and took his hand. Then she added quickly to Miss Blake: "He seems feverish. Is he ill?" "Perhaps he is," the other answered. "I never saw him so queer as he is this morning. You'd better let the doctor see him when he comes."

But long before the eleven o'clock visit of the physician of the Board of Health, the illness of Isidore had reached its crisis. When Miss Bailey had established him in his new place he had seen nothing of his surroundings and had been quite deaf to the greetings, whether shy or jeering, with which the First-Reader Class had welcomed him. Left to his own devices, he had promptly laid his arms upon his desk and his head upon his arms. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Isidore's brilliant head still rested on his folded arms and Teacher felt that she must make some effort to comfort his wordless misery.

"Isidore," she began, bending over him, "you won't have to stay here very long. You may go back to Miss Blake in a few days if you are good. So now, dear boy, cheer up!" But as she patted the shoulder nearest to her a long sigh quivered through the little body.

"Now, don't do that," Miss Bailey urged. "Isidore, sit up nicely and let me look at you," and, slipping her hand beneath the chin, she turned the face up to hers. She was prepared for tear-drenched eyes and trembling lips but she found neither. Isidore's dark-lashed lids drooped heavily over his unseeing eyes, his head rolled loosely from side to side, and he began to slip, silently and unconsciously to the floor.

Teacher, in wild alarm, bore him to an open window and sent Patrick Brennan in flying search of the Principal. A great revulsion shook her whenever she looked at the blank little face, but she never guessed the truth. Patrick's quest was short and the Principal's first glance sufficient.

"Send for the janitor," he commanded, and then, "Miss Bailey, may I speak to you in the hall?"

Teacher invested Morris Mogilewsky in the chair and the position of authority, sent Patrick for the janitor, and, strangely shaken, followed the Principal.

"What is it?" she asked, miserably, when the door was closed. "What is the matter with that baby?"

"Well," said the Principal kindly, "if you were more experienced you would be less shocked than I fear you are going to be. The child is simply and most abominably drunk."

"Drunk!" gasped Miss Bailey. "Drunk! and not seven years old!"

"Drunk," echoed the Principal. "Poor little chap! Did Miss Blake tell you the history?--The mother dead, the father away all day, no woman's care. Of course, the end will be the reformatory, but I wonder if we can do anything before that end is reached?"

"Oh, it can't be quite hopeless!" cried Miss Bailey. "Please give him to me. But I want to see that father."

"So you shall," the Principal assured her. "I shall send for him to-morrow to explain this. But he will be entirely at sea. I have him here every two or three weeks about one or other of his children--there are two boys in the upper grades--and the poor devil never can explain. However, I shall let you know when he is here."

The morrow proved the Principal's surmise to have been correct. Mr. Lazarus Diamantstein stood in helpless and hopeless misery before a court of inquiry comprising the Principal, Miss Bailey, the physician of the Board of Health, a representative of the Gerry Society, the truant officer, the indignant janitor, and a policeman who had come to the school in reference to the florid language of his own small son, and, for scenic effect, was pressed into service. Mr. Diamantstein turned from one to another of these stern-faced officials and to each in turn he made his unaltered plea:

"Mine leetle Izzie was a goot leetle boy. He don't never make like you says. Ach! never, never!"

Again, for effect, scenic or moral, the Principal indicated one of the hostile figures of the court. "This gentleman," said he, "belongs to a society which will take charge of your son. Have you ever, Mr. Diamantstein, heard of the Gerry Society?"

Poor Mr. Diamantstein cowered. In all the terrifying world in which he groped so darkly, the two forces against which he had been most often warned were the Board of Health, which might at any time and without notice wash out one's house and confiscate one's provisions; and the Gerry Society, which washed one's children with soap made from the grease of pigs, and fed them with all sorts of "traef" and unblessed meat.

"Ach, no!" he implored. "Gott, no! You should not take and make so mit mine' leetle boy. He ain't a bad boy. He sure ain't."