Volume III Part 15 (1/2)

”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-favored. And so he set about creating the distress which he would later change to grat.i.tude and joy. a.s.suredly the Honorable Timothy had a well-developed sense of humor.

”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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sumed 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' and tells it out.”

And here was Teacher whom he dearly loved, whose ideals of personal adornment extended to full sets of b.u.t.tons on jumpers and to laces in both shoes, here was his immaculate lady fair in urgent need of a.s.sistance 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 Honorable 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 gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on. 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 Honorable 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?”