Chapter II: Part 2

Teacher, too, was more beautiful than ever. Her dress was blue, and "very long down, like a lady," with bands of silk and scraps of lace distributed with the eye of art. In her hair she wore a bow of what Sadie Gonorowsky, whose father "worked by fancy goods," described as black "from plush ribbon--costs ten cents."

Isidore Belchatosky, relenting, was the first to lay tribute before Teacher. He came forward with a sweet smile and a tall candlestick--the candy had gone to its long home--and Teacher, for a moment, could not be made to understand that all that length of bluish-white china was really hers "for keeps."

"It's to-morrow holiday," Isidore assured her; "and we gives you presents, the while we have a kind feeling. Candlesticks could to cost twenty-five cents."

"It's a lie. Three for ten," said a voice in the background, but Teacher hastened to respond to Isidore's test of her credulity:

"Indeed, they could. This candlestick could have cost fifty cents, and it's just what I want. It is very good of you to bring me a present."

"You're welcome," said Isidore, retiring; and then, the ice being broken, the First-Reader Class in a body rose to cast its gifts on Teacher's desk, and its arms around Teacher's neck.

Nathan Horowitz presented a small cup and saucer; Isidore Applebaum bestowed a large calendar for the year before last; Sadie Gonorowsky brought a basket containing a bottle of perfume, a thimble, and a bright silk handkerchief; Sarah Schrodsky offered a pen-wiper and a yellow celluloid collar-button, and Eva Kidansky gave an elaborate nasal douche, under the pleasing delusion that it was an atomizer.

Once more sounds of grief reached Teacher's ears. Rushing again to the rescue, she threw open the door and came upon Woe personified. Eva Gonorowsky, her hair in wildest disarray, her stocking fouled, ungartered, and down-gyved to her ankle, appeared before her teacher. She bore all the marks of Hamlet's excitement, and many more, including a tear-stained little face and a gilt saucer clasped to a panting breast.

"Eva, my dearest Eva, what's happened to you _now_?" asked Teacher, for the list of ill-chances which had befallen this one of her charges was very long. And Eva's wail was that a boy, a very big boy, had stolen her golden cup "what I had for you by present," and had left her only the saucer and her undying love to bestow.

Before Eva's sobs had quite yielded to Teacher's arts, Jacob Spitsky pressed forward with a tortoise-shell comb of terrifying aspect and hungry teeth, and an air showing forth a determination to adjust it in its destined place. Teacher meekly bowed her head; Jacob forced his offering into her long-suffering hair, and then retired with the information, "Costs fifteen cents, Teacher," and the courteous phrase--by etiquette prescribed--"Wish you health to wear it." He was plainly a hero, and was heard remarking to less favoured admirers that "Teacher's hair is awful softy, and smells off of perfumery."

Here a big boy, a very big boy, entered hastily. He did not belong to Room 18, but he had long known Teacher. He had brought her a present; he wished her a Merry Christmas. The present, when produced, proved to be a pretty gold cup, and Eva Gonorowsky, with renewed emotion, recognized the boy as her assailant and the cup as her property. Teacher was dreadfully embarrassed; the boy not at all so. His policy was simple and entire denial, and in this he persevered, even after Eva's saucer had unmistakably proclaimed its relationship to the cup.

Meanwhile the rush of presentation went steadily on. Other cups and saucers came in wild profusion. The desk was covered with them, and their wrappings of purple tissue paper required a monitor's whole attention. The soap, too, became urgently perceptible. It was of all sizes, shapes and colours, but of uniform and dreadful power of perfumes Teacher's eyes filled with tears--of gratitude--as each new piece or box was pressed against her nose, and Teacher's mind was full of wonder as to what she could ever do with all of it. Bottles of perfume vied with one another and with the all-pervading soap until the air was heavy and breathing grew labourious. But pride swelled the hearts of the assembled multitude. No other Teacher had so many helps to the toilet. None other was so beloved.

Teacher's aspect was quite changed, and the "blue long down like a lady dress" was almost hidden by the offerings she had received. Jacob's comb had two massive and bejewelled rivals in the "softy hair." The front of the dress, where aching or despondent heads were wont to rest, glittered with campaign buttons of American celebrities, beginning with James G. Blaine and extending into modern history as far as Patrick Divver, Admiral Dewey, and Captain Dreyfus. Outside the blue belt was a white one, nearly clean, and bearing in "sure 'nough golden words" the curt, but stirring, invitation, "Remember the Maine." Around the neck were three chaplets of beads, wrought by chubby fingers and embodying much love, while the waist-line was further adorned by tiny and beribboned aprons. Truly, it was a day of triumph.

When the waste-paper basket had been twice filled with wrappings and twice emptied; when order was emerging out of chaos; when the Christmas-tree had been disclosed and its treasures distributed, a timid hand was laid on Teacher's knee and a plaintive voice whispered, "Say, Teacher, I got something for you;" and Teacher turned quickly to see Morris, her dearest boy charge, with his poor little body showing quite plainly between his shirt-waist buttons and through the gashes he called pockets. This was his ordinary costume, and the funds of the house of Mogilewsky were evidently unequal to an outer layer of finery.

"Now, Morris dear," said Teacher, "you shouldn't have troubled to get me a present; you know you and I are such good friends that--"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an," Morris interrupted, in a bewitching and rising inflection of his soft and plaintive voice. "I know you got a kind feeling by me, and I couldn't to tell even how I got a kind feeling by you. Only it's about that kind feeling I should give you a present. I didn't"--with a glance at the crowded desk--"I didn't to have no soap nor no perfumery, and my mamma she couldn't to buy none by the store; but, Teacher, I'm got something awful nice for you by present."

"And what is it, deary?" asked the already rich and gifted young person. "What is my new present?"

"Teacher, it's like this: I don't know; I ain't so big like I could to know"--and, truly, God pity him! he was passing small--"it ain't for boys--it's for ladies. Over yesterday on the night comes my papa to my house, und he gives my mamma the present. Sooner she looks on it, sooner she has a awful glad; in her eyes stands tears, und she says, like that--out of Jewish--'Thanks,' un' she kisses my papa a kiss. Und my papa, _how_ he is polite! he says--out of Jewish too--'You're welcome, all right,' un' he kisses my mamma a kiss. So my mamma, she sets und looks on the present, und all the time she looks she has a glad over it. Und I didn't to have no soap, so you could to have the present."

"But did your mother say I might?"

"Teacher, no ma'an; she didn't say like that, und she didn't to say _not_ like that. She didn't to know. But it's for ladies, un' I didn't to have no soap. You could to look on it. It ain't for boys."

And here Morris opened a hot little hand and disclosed a tightly folded pinkish paper. As Teacher read it he watched her with eager, furtive eyes, dry and bright, until hers grew suddenly moist, when his promptly followed suit. As she looked down at him, he made his moan once more:

"It's for ladies, und I didn't to have no soap."

"But, Morris, dear," cried Teacher unsteadily, laughing a little, and yet not far from tears, "this is ever so much nicer than soap--a thousand times better than perfume; and you're quite right, it is for ladies, and I never had one in all my life before. I am so very thankful."

"You're welcome, all right. That's how my papa says; it's polite," said Morris proudly. And proudly he took his place among the very little boys, and loudly he joined in the ensuing song. For the rest of that exciting day he was a shining point of virtue in the rest of that confused class. And at three o'clock he was at Teacher's desk again, carrying on the conversation as if there had been no interruption.

"Und my mamma," he said insinuatingly--"she kisses my papa a kiss."

"Well?" said Teacher.

"Well," said Morris, "you ain't never kissed me a kiss, und I seen how you kissed Eva Gonorowsky. I'm loving mit you too. Why don't you never kiss me a kiss?"

"Perhaps," suggested Teacher mischievously, "perhaps it ain't for boys."

But a glance at her "light face," with its crown of surprising combs, reassured him.

"Teacher, yiss ma'an; it's for boys," he cried as he felt her arms about him, and saw that in her eyes, too, "stands tears."

"It's polite you kisses me a kiss over that for ladies' present."

Late that night Teacher sat in her pretty room--for she was, unofficially, a greatly pampered young person--and reviewed her treasures. She saw that they were very numerous, very touching, very whimsical, and very precious. But above all the rest she cherished a frayed and pinkish paper, rather crumpled and a little soiled. For it held the love of a man and a woman and a little child, and the magic of a home, for Morris Mogilewsky's Christmas present for ladies was the receipt for a month's rent for a room on the top floor of a Monroe Street tenement.

LOVE AMONG THE BLACKBOARDS

An organized government requires a cabinet, and, during the first weeks of her reign over Room 18, Miss Bailey set about providing herself with aides and advisors. She made, naturally, some fatal and expensive mistakes, as when she entrusted the class pencils to the care of one of the Yonowsky twins who, promptly falling ill of scarlet fever and imparting it to his brother, reduced the First-Reader Class to writing with coloured chalk.

But gradually from the rank and file of candidates, from the well-meaning but clumsy; from the competent but dishonest; from the lazy and from the rash, she selected three loyal and devoted men to share her task of ruling. They were Morris Mogilewsky, Prime Minister and Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl; Nathan Spiderwitz, Councillor of the Exchequer and Monitor of Window Boxes; and Patrick Brennan, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces and Leader of the Line.

The members of this cabinet, finding themselves raised to such high places by the pleasure of their sovereign, kept watchful eyes upon her. For full well they knew that cruelest of all the laws of the Board of Education, which decrees: "That the marriage of a female teacher shall constitute resignation." This ruling had deprived them of a Kindergarten teacher of transcendent charm and had made them as watchful of Miss Bailey as a bevy of maiden aunts could have been. Losing her they would lose love and power, and love and power are sweet.

Morris was the first to discover definite grounds for uneasiness. He met his cherished Miss Bailey walking across Grand Street on a rainy morning, and the umbrella which was protecting her beloved head was held by a tall stranger in a long and baggy coat. After circling incredulously about this tableau, Morris dashed off to report to his colleagues. He found Patrick and Nathan in the midst of an exciting game of craps, but his pattering feet warned them of danger, so they pocketed their dice and turned to hear his news.

"Say," he panted; "I seen Teacher mit a man."

"No!" said Patrick, aghast.

"It's a lie!" cried Nathan; "it's a lie!"

"No; it's no lie," said Morris, with a sob half of breathlessness and half of sorrow; "I seen her for sure. Und the man carries umbrellas over her mit loving looks."

"Ah, g'wan," drawled Patrick; "you're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure do I," cried Morris. "I had once a auntie what was loving mit a awful stylish salesman--he's now floorwalkers--und I see how they makes."

"Well," said Patrick, "I had a sister Mary and she married the milkman, so I know, too. But umbrellas doesn't mean much."

"But the loving looks," Morris insisted. "My auntie makes such looks on the salesman--he's now floorwalkers--und sooner she marries mit him."

"Say, Patrick," suggested Nathan; "I'll tell you what to do. You ask her if she's goin' to get married."

"Naw," said Patrick. "Let Morris ask her. She'd tell him before she'd tell any of us. She's been soft on him ever since Christmas. Say, Morris, do you hear? You've got to ask Teacher if she's going to get married."

"Oo-o-oh! I dassent. It ain't polite how you says," cried Morris in his shocked little voice. "It _ain't_ polite you asks like that. It's fierce."

"Well, you've got to do it, anyway," said Patrick darkly, "and you've got to do it soon, and you've got to let us hear you."

"It's fierce," protested Morris, but he was overruled by the dominant spirit of Patrick Brennan, that grandson of the kings of Munster and son of the policeman on the beat. His opportunity found him on the very next morning. Isidore Wishnewsky, the gentlest of gentle children, came to school wearing his accustomed air of melancholy shot across with a tender pride. His subdued "Good morning" was accompanied with much strenuous exertion directed, apparently, to the removal and exhibition of a portion of his spine. After much wriggling he paused long enough to say:

"Teacher, what you think? I'm got a present for you," and then recommenced his search in another layer of his many flannels. His efforts being at length crowned with success, he drew forth and spread before Teacher's admiring eyes a Japanese paper napkin.

"My sister," he explained. "She gets it to a weddinge."

"Oh, Isidore," cried the flattered Teacher; "it's very pretty, isn't it?"

"Teacher--yiss ma'an," gurgled Isidore. "It's stylish. You could to look on how stands birds on it and flowers. Mine sister she gives it to me und I gives it to you. _I_ don't need it. She gives me all times something the while she's got such a kind feelin' over me. She goes all times on weddinges. Most all her younge lady friends gettin' married; ain't it funny?"

At the fateful word "married," the uneasy cabinet closed in about Teacher. Their three pairs of eyes clung to her face as Isidore repeated:

"All gettin' married. Ain't it funny?"

"Well, no, dear," answered Teacher musingly. "You know nearly all young ladies do it."

Patrick took a pin from Teacher's desk and kneeled to tie his shoe-string. When he rose the point of the pin projected half an inch beyond the frayed toe of his shoe, and he was armed. Morris was most evidently losing courage--he was indeed trying to steal away when Patrick pressed close beside him and held him to his post.

"Teacher," said Isidore suddenly, as a dreadful thought struck him, "be you a lady or be you a girl?"

And Teacher, being of Hibernian ancestry, answered one question with another:

"Which do you think, Isidore?"

"Well," Isidore answered, "I don't know be you a forsure lady or be you a forsure girl. You wears your hair so tucked up und your dress so long down like you was a lady, but you laffs und tells us stories like you was a girl. I don't know."

Clearly this was Morris's opening. Patrick pierced his soul with a glance of scorn and simultaneously buried the pin in his quaking leg. Thus encouraged, Morris rushed blindly into the conversation with:

"Say, Teacher, Miss Bailey, be _you_ goin' to get married?" and then dropped limply against her shoulder.

The question was not quite new to Teacher and, as she bestowed Morris more comfortably on her knee, she pondered once again. She knew that, for the present, her lines had fallen in very pleasant places, and she felt no desire to change to pastures new. And yet--and yet--. The average female life is long, and a Board, however thoughtful as to salary and pension, is an impersonal lord and master, and remote withal. So she answered quite simply, with her cheek against the boy's:

"Well, perhaps so, Morris. Perhaps I shall, some day."

"Teacher, no ma'an, Miss Bailey!" wailed the Monitor of the Gold-Fish. "Don't you go and get married mit nobody. So you do you couldn't be Teacher by us no more, and you're a awful nice teacher by little boys. You ain't _too_ big. Und say, we'd feel terrible bad the while you goes and gets married mit somebody--terrible bad."

"Should you really, now?" asked Teacher, greatly pleased. "Well, dear, I too should be lonely without you."

Here Isidore Wishnewsky, who considered this conversation as his cherished own, and saw it being torn from him, determined to outdo the favoured Morris as a squire of dames.

"Teacher, yiss ma'an," he broke in. "We'd all feel terrible the while we ain't got you by teacher. All the boys und all the girls they says like this--it's the word in the yard--we ain't never had a teacher smells so nice like you."

While Teacher was in the lenient mood, resulting from this astounding tribute, Nathan forged yet another chain for her securing.

"Teacher," said he, "you wouldn't never go and get married mit nobody 'out saying nothing to somebody, would you?"

"Indeed, no, my dear," Miss Bailey assured him. "When I marry, you and Patrick and Morris shall be ushers--monitors, you know. Now are you happy, you funny little chaps?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an," Morris sighed, as the bell rang sharply, and the aloof and formal exercise of the assembly room began.

Some days later Teacher arranged to go to a reception, and as she did not care to return to her home between work and play, she appeared at school in rather festive array. Room 18 was delighted with its transformed ruler, but to the board of monitors this glory of raiment brought nothing but misery. Every twist in the neat coiffure, every fold of the pretty dress, every rustle of the invisible silk, every click of the high heels, meant the coming abdication of Teacher and the disbanding of her cabinet. Just so had Patrick's sister Mary looked on the day she wed the milkman. Just such had been the outward aspect of Morris's auntie on the day of her union to the promising young salesman who was now a floorwalker and Morris's Uncle Ikey.

Momentarily they expected some word of farewell--perhaps even an ice-cream party--but Teacher made no sign. They decided that she was reserving her last words for their private ear and were greatly disconcerted to find themselves turned out with the common herd at three o'clock. With heavy hearts they followed the example of Mary's little lamb and waited patiently about till Teacher did appear. When she came she was more wonderful than ever, in a long and billowy boa and a wide and billowy hat. She had seemed in a breathless hurry while up in Room 18, but now she stood quite placidly in a group of her small adherents on the highest of the school-house steps. And the cabinet, waiting gloomily apart, only muttered, "I told ye so," and "It must be a awful kind feeling," when the tall stranger came swinging upon the scene. When Teacher's eyes fell upon him she began to force her way through her clinging court, and when he was half way up the steps she was half way down. As they met he drew from his pocket a hand and the violets it held and Teacher was still adjusting the flowers in her jacket when she passed her lurking staff. "I didn't expect you at all," she was saying. "You know it was not a really definite arrangement, and men hate receptions."

A big voice replied in a phrase which Morris identified as having been prominent in the repertoire of the enamoured salesman--now a floorwalker--and Teacher with her companion turned to cross the street. Her heels clicked for yet a moment and the deserted cabinet knew that all was over.

The gloom obscuring Patrick's spirit on that evening was of so deep a dye that Mrs. Brennan diagnosed it as the first stage of "a consumption." She administered simple remedies and warm baths with perseverance, but without effect. And more potent to cure than bath or bottle was the sight of Teacher on the next morning in her accustomed clothes and place.

The Board of Monitors had hardly recovered from this panic when another alarming symptom appeared. Miss Bailey began to watch for letters, and large envelopes began to reward her watchfulness. Daily was Patrick sent to the powers that were to demand a letter, and daily he carried one, and a sorely heavy heart, back to his sovereign. In exactly the same sweetly insistent way had he been sent many a time and oft to seek tidings of the laggard milkman. His colleagues, when he laid these facts before them, were of the opinion that things looked very dark for Teacher. Said Nathan:

"You know how she says we should be monitors on her weddinge? Well, it could to be lies. She marries maybe already."

Patrick promptly knocked the Monitor of Window Boxes down upon the rough asphalt of the yard and kicked him.

"Miss Bailey's no sneak," he cried hotly. "If she was married she'd just as lief go and tell."

"Well," Morris began, "I had once a auntie--"

"Your auntie makes me sick," snapped Patrick. But Morris went on quite undisturbedly:

"I had once a auntie und she had awful kind feelings over a stylish floorwalker, und he was loving mit her. So-o-oh! They marries! Und they don't say nothings to nobody. On'y the stylish floor walker he writes on my auntie whole bunches of lovin' letters."

"She ain't married," Patrick reiterated. "She ain't."

"Well, she will be," muttered Nathan vindictively. "Und the new teacher will lick you the while you fights. It's fierce how you make me biles on my bones. Think shame."

When the ruffled Monitor of the Window Boxes had been soothed by the peaceful Guardian of the Gold-Fish, the cabinet held council. Nathan suggested that it might be possible to bribe the interloper. They would give him their combined wealth and urge him to turn his eyes upon Miss Blake, whose room was across the hall. She was very big and would do excellently well for him, whereas she was entirely too long and too wide for them.

Morris maintained that Teacher might be held by gratitude. A list should be made out, and, each in turn, a child a day, should give her a present.

Patrick listened to these ideas in deep and restive disgust. He urged instant and copious bloodshed. His big brother's gang could "let daylight into the dude" with enjoyment and despatch. They would watch him ceaselessly and they would track him down.

The watching was an easy matter, for Teacher, in common with the majority of rulers, lived much in the public eye. The stranger was often detected prowling in her vicinity. He even began to bring her to school in the mornings, and on these occasions there were always violets in her coat. He used to appear at luncheon time and vanish with her. He used to come in the afternoon and have tea in Room 18 with two other teachers and with Teacher. The antagonism of the Monitor of Gold Fish became so marked that Miss Bailey was forced to remonstrate.

"Morris, dear," she began one afternoon, when they were alone together, "you were very rude to Doctor Ingraham yesterday. I can't allow you to stay here with me if you're going to behave so badly. You sulked horribly and you slammed the door against his foot. Of course it was an accident, but how would you feel, Morris, if you had hurt him?"

"Glad," said the Monitor of the Gold-Fish savagely. "Glad."

"Morris! What do you mean by saying such a thing? I'm ashamed of you. Why should you want to hurt a friend of mine?"

"Don't you be friends mit him!" cried Morris, deserting his fish and throwing himself upon his teacher. "Don't you do it, Teacher Missis Bailey. He ain't no friends for a lady." And then, in answer to Teacher's stare of blank surprise, he went on:

"My mamma she seen him by your side und she says--I got to tell you in whispering how she says."

Teacher bent her head and Morris whispered in an awe-struck voice:

"My mamma says she like that: 'He could to be a Krisht,'" and then drew back to study Teacher's consternation. But she seemed quite calm. Perhaps she had already faced the devastating fact, for she said:

"Yes, I know he's a Christian. I'm not afraid of them. Are you?"

"Teacher, no ma'an, Missis Bailey, I ain't got no scare over Krishts, on'y they ain't no friends for ladies. My papa says like that on my auntie, und my auntie she's married now mit a stylish floorwalker. We'm got a Krisht in our house for boarder, so I know. But _you_ couldn't to know 'bout Krishts."

"Yes, I do. They're very nice people."

"No ma'an," said Morris gently. And then still more courteously: "It's a lie. You couldn't to know about Krishts."

"But I do know all about them, Morris dear. I'm a Christian."

Again Morris remembered his manners. Again he replied in his courtly phrase:

"It's a lie." As he said it, with a bewitching rising inflection, it was almost a caress. "It's a lie. Teacher fools. You couldn't to be no Krisht. You ain't got no looks off of Krishts."

Teacher was mildly surprised. She was as Irish as Patrick Brennan and, in her own way, she looked it. Truly her eyes were brown, but the face and the faith of her fathers were still strongly hers. Morris, meanwhile, examined his sovereign with admiring eyes. He could well understand the heart of that Krisht, for Teacher was very beautiful and of splendid array. Her jumper was red, with golden buttons, and her collar was white, and her hair was soft, with combs. And she had a light face and a little bit of nose and teeth. Her apron was from silk with red ribbons and red flowers, and she had like man's-shoes and a watch. This vision of feminine perfection was bestowing time and smiles on him. She was actually appealing to his judgment.

"Not look like a Christian?" she was saying. "Well, then, Morris, what do I look like?"

And Morris, ever going straight to the point, replied: "You looks like a stylish Sheeny," and waited for this intoxicating praise to bring blushes to the light face he loved. It brought the blushes, but they were even redder and hotter than he had expected. There was also a gasp on which he had not counted and a queer flash in the brown eyes.

"Morris," said Teacher, "Morris, did you ever see a Sheeny with a nose like mine?"

Morris raised his head from the red jumper, climbed off the from-silk apron and solemnly contemplated the little bit of nose. The truth broke over him in sickening waves. The star of his life had set; his doll was stuffed with sawdust; his idol had feet of clay; his light-faced lady was a Christian. And yet she was his teacher and greatly to be loved, so he bore the knowledge, for her dear sake, as bravely as he could. He returned to the from-silk apron, wound a short arm round the white collar, and sobbed:

"Teacher, yiss ma'an, you'm got a Krisht nose. But don't you care, no one couldn't never to know like you ain't a for sure Sheeny the while you got such terrible Sheeny eyes. Oh, but they couldn't never to think you're a Krisht. Und say, don't you have a frightened. I wouldn't never to tell nobody. Never. I makes a swear over it. I kiss up to God. I hopes I drops down if I tells."

At the end of a month the high heels and the festive raiment appeared again, and the staff knew that the time for action had really come. They must bring the Krisht to terms before he should see Teacher in her present and irresistible array. He was always first at the trysting place, and there they would have speech with him. They arranged to escape from Room 18 before three o'clock. The Commander-in-Chief feigned a nose-bleed, the Prime Minister developed an inward agony, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some moments of indecision, boldly plucked out a tottering tooth and followed--bloody but triumphant--in their wake. They found the enemy just as they had expected, and Morris, being again elected spokesman, stepped forward and took him by his dastard hand. The adversary yielded, thinking that Teacher had been forced to greater caution. The Commander-in-Chief and the Chancellor followed close behind, they having consented, in view of the enormous issues involved, to act as scouts. Around the corner they went into a dark and narrow alley, and, when they had reached a secluded spot between the high wall of the school and the blank windows of a recently burned tenement house, Morris began:

"Teacher don't wants to go on the party mit you the while she ain't got no more that kind feeling over you."

"What?" cried the astonished Doctor Ingraham.

"She don't wants to be married mit you."

"Did Miss Bailey send you with any message to me?"

The question was so fierce that the truth was forced from the unwilling lips of the spokesman.

"No ma'an--no sir," they faltered. "On'y that's the feeling what she had. Und so you go away now 'out seeing Teacher, me und the other fellows we gives you FIVE cents."

The cabinet drew near to hear the answer to this suggestion. It puzzled them, for--

"Now, look here, boy," said Doctor Ingraham, "you'd better go home and get to bed. You aren't well."

Morris conferred with his colleagues and returned with:

"We gives you SEVEN cents so you go home now 'out seeing Teacher. A nickel und two pennies so you go _now_. Und say, Miss Blake could to go by your side. She has kind feelings over you."

"Nonsense," said the man. "When will your teacher be down?"

"She ain't coming at all. She has no more feelings. So you goes now we gives you a dime and a penny. ELEVEN cents. We ain't got it; on'y we _could_ to get. Teacher gives me all times pennies."

Just as the stranger was wondering how much of truth these extraordinary children knew, Teacher, calm-eyed and unruffled, appeared upon the scene. She said, as she generally did:

"Doctor Ingraham! Who would have thought to find you here!" And then, "Are you talking to my little people? They are the cleverest little things, and such friends of mine. Morris here and I are the greatest of cronies."

Teacher's manner, as she began her greeting, was serene and bright, but a gloomy, even a morose, glance from Doctor Ingraham's cold blue eye quite changed her. His voice too, considered as the voice of love, sounded sulkily as he said:

"So it seems. He has given me an answer which you refused me."

"How generous of Morris and how thoughtful! He's always trying to save me trouble. And the question, now, to which the answer belonged. May one know that?"

"You know it well enough," with a glance up and down the deserted alley, for even Patrick had realized that discretion is the better part of statesmanship.

"Oh _that_" said Teacher. "And Morris's answer?"

"No."

"They really are the cleverest children."

"Little brutes! I can't think why you come down here every day. The brats aren't in the least grateful."

"But they are. They think me perfection."

"That is the contagion of mental states."

"And they're not fond of you." "That's it again, I suppose." And, as Teacher made no sign of having heard, he went on: "Tea, do you know, is a dreadful bore."

"Of course, but cold tea is worse. And the cakes are so shattered towards the end. Come."

"I've changed my mind. I'm not going. I'm tired of this sort of thing. Answer me now."

"But the children," faltered Teacher. "I should miss them so."

At this sign of weakening Doctor Ingraham favoured the queer old street with a tableau to which it long had been a stranger. And the cabinet, creeping back to reconnoitre, immediately guessed the worst. Said Morris:

"She's lovin' mit him und he's loving mit her. They've got loving looks. I had once a auntie--"

This was too much for the torn spirit of the Leader of the Line. He laid violent hands--and feet--upon the Monitor of Gold Fish. The Monitor of Window Boxes promptly followed suit. Morris's prolonged yell of agonized surprise brought Teacher flying to the rescue. And Teacher brought Doctor Ingraham. While the latter held and restrained Patrick and Nathan, Miss Bailey lavished endearments and caresses on her favourite. The captor grew as restless as his captives under this aggravation, and at last allowed his charges to escape.

"Look here!" he remonstrated; "I can't stand this sort of thing, you know. It's cruel."

But Teacher's ears were all for Morris's tale of sorrow.

"I don't know what is mit Patrick," he was saying. "He hits me a hack somethin' fierce sooner I says about mine auntie. Und Nathan, too, is bad boys. He says you lies."

"I?" said Teacher; "I?"

"Yiss ma'an, that's how he says. On'y _I_ know you don't lies. I _know_ we should be monitors like you says."

"When, dearie?"

"On your weddinge. You know you says me, und Patrick, und Nathan, should be monitors on your weddinge when you marries mit him." And Morris stretched a pointing finger at the foe. After one radiant glance at Teacher's face, Doctor Ingraham possessed himself of the scrubby hand and shook it warmly.

"And so you shall, old chap," he cried, "so you shall. You may be best man if you so desire. Anything you like."

"New clothes?" asked Morris.

"From stem to stern."

"Ice-cream?"

"Gallons."

"Paper napkins mit birds?"

"Bushels."

"Can I mine little sister bring?"

"A dozen little sisters if you have them."

"Can I go in a carriage, down and up? It's stylish."

"You shall have a parade of carriages--one for each sister."

"Morris," commanded Miss Bailey, "go home."

When she turned to confront Doctor Ingraham the "light face" was brightly pink and the "terrible Sheeny eyes" held a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

"Of course I can't explain this," she said. "I must simply ask you to believe that he is making a dreadful mistake. You were quite right when you said they were ungrateful little brutes. They are. You were quite right, too, about teas being a bore. They are. So you will pardon me if I go to see little Leah Yonowsky. The twins are reported ill again. Good afternoon."

It was a very rueful and disgusted enemy that the cabinet discerned in the offing.

"Good Lord!" cried the Commander-in-Chief. "Here he comes again, and Miss Bailey ain't with him."

"Morris," said the enemy, "you've done for me, my boy."

"Won't she go by your side on the party?" asked the Prime Minister.

"She will not," admitted the hostile power. "So you may as well trot out Miss Blake and begin to collect my eleven cents. For, though you may not have discovered it--and there be those who doubt it--a ten-cent cigar's a smoke."

MORRIS AND THE HONOURABLE TIM

On the first day of school, after the Christmas holidays, Teacher found herself surrounded by a howling mob of little savages in which she had much difficulty in recognizing her cherished First-Reader Class. Isidore Belchatosky's face was so wreathed in smiles and foreign matter as to be beyond identification; Nathan Spiderwitz had placed all his trust in a solitary suspender and two unstable buttons; Eva Kidansky had entirely freed herself from restraining hooks and eyes; Isidore Applebaum had discarded shoe-laces; and Abie Ashnewsky had bartered his only necktie for a yard of "shoe-string" licorice.

Miss Bailey was greatly disheartened by this reversion to the original type. She delivered daily lectures on nail-brushes, hair-ribbons, shoe polish, pins, buttons, elastic, and other means to grace. Her talks on soap and water became almost personal in tone, and her insistence on a close union between such garments as were meant to be united, led to a lively traffic in twisted and disreputable safety-pins. And yet the First-Reader Class, in all other branches of learning so receptive and responsive, made but halting and uncertain progress towards thatstate of virtue which is next to godliness.

Early in January came the report that "Gum Shoe Tim" was on the war-path and might be expected at any time. Miss Bailey heard the tidings in calm ignorance until Miss Blake, who ruled over the adjoining kingdom, interpreted the warning. A license to teach in the public schools of New York is good for only one year. Its renewal depends upon the reports of the Principal in charge of the school and of the Associate Superintendent in whose district the school chances to be. After three such renewals the license becomes permanent, but Miss Bailey was, as a teacher, barely four months old. The Associate Superintendent for her vicinity was the Honourable Timothy O'Shea, known and dreaded as "Gum Shoe Tim," owing to his engaging way of creeping softly up back stairs and appearing, all unheralded and unwelcome, upon the threshold of his intended victim.

This, Miss Blake explained, was in defiance of all the rules of etiquette governing such visits of inspection. The proper procedure had been that of Mr. O'Shea's predecessor, who had always given timely notice of his coming and a hint as to the subjects in which he intended to examine the children. Some days later he would amble from room to room, accompanied by the amiable Principal, and followed by the gratitude of smiling and unruffled teachers.

This kind old gentleman was now retired and had been succeeded by Mr. O'Shea, who, in addition to his unexpectedness, was adorned by an abominable temper, an overbearing manner, and a sense of cruel humour. He had almost finished his examinations at the nearest school where, during a brisk campaign of eight days, he had caused five dismissals, nine cases of nervous exhaustion, and an epidemic of hysteria.

Day by day nerves grew more tense, tempers more unsure, sleep and appetite more fugitive. Experienced teachers went stolidly on with the ordinary routine while beginners devoted time and energy to the more spectacular portions of the curriculum. But no one knew the Honourable Timothy's pet subjects and so no one could specialize to any great extent.

Miss Bailey was one of the beginners, and Room 18 was made to shine as the sun. Morris Mogilewsky, Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl, wrought busily until his charges glowed redly against the water plants in their shining bowl. Creepers crept, plants grew, and ferns waved under the care of Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of the Window Boxes. There was such a martial swing and strut in Patrick Brennan's leadership of the line that it informed even the timid heart of Isidore Wishnewsky with a war-like glow and his feet with a spasmodic but well-meant tramp. Sadie Gonorowsky and Eva, her cousin, sat closely side by side, no longer "mad on theirselves," but "mit kind feelings." The work of the preceding term was laid in neat and docketed piles upon the low book-case. The children were enjoined to keep clean and entire. And Teacher, a nervous and unsmiling Teacher, waited dully.

A week passed thus, and then the good-hearted and experienced Miss Blake hurried ponderously across the hall to put Teacher on her guard.

"I've just had a note from one of the grammar teachers," she panted. "'Gum Shoe Tim' is up in Miss Greene's room. He'll take this floor next. Now, see here, child, don't look so frightened. The Principle is with Tim. Of course you're nervous, but try not to show it. And you'll be all right, his lay is discipline and reading. Well, good luck to you!"

Miss Bailey took heart of grace. The children read surprisingly well, were absolutely good, and the enemy under convoy of the friendly Principal would be much less terrifying than the enemy at large and alone. It was, therefore, with a manner almost serene that she turned to greet the kindly concerned Principal and the dreaded "Gum Shoe Tim." The latter she found less ominous of aspect than she had been led to fear, and the Principal's charming little speech of introduction made her flush with quick pleasure. And the anxious eyes of Sadie Gonorowsky, noting the flush, grew calm as Sadie whispered to Eva, her close cousin:

"Say, Teacher has a glad. She's red on the face. It could to be her papa."

"No. It's comp'ny," answered Eva sagely. "It ain't her papa. It's comp'ny the whiles Teacher takes him by the hand."

The children were not in the least disconcerted by the presence of the large man. They always enjoyed visitors and they liked the heavy gold chain which festooned the wide white waistcoat of this guest; and, as they watched him, the Associate Superintendent began to superintend.

He looked at the children all in their clean and smiling rows: he looked at the flowers and the gold fish; at the pictures and the plaster casts: he looked at the work of the last term and he looked at Teacher. As he looked he swayed gently on his rubber heels and decided that he was going to enjoy the coming quarter of an hour. Teacher pleased him from the first. She was neither old nor ill-favoured, and she was most evidently nervous. The combination appealed both to his love of power and his peculiar sense of humour. Settling deliberately in the chair of state, he began:

"Can the children sing, Miss Bailey?"

They could sing very prettily and they did.

"Very nice, indeed," said the voice of visiting authority. "Very nice. Their music is exceptionally good. And are they drilled? Children, will you march for me?"

Again they could and did. Patrick marshaled his line in time and triumph up and down the aisles to the evident interest and approval of the "comp'ny," and then Teacher led the class through some very energetic Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening at Teacher's command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of the Honourable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the note and read its every word.

"For you, Miss Bailey," he said in the voice before which even the school janitor had been known to quail. "Your friend was thoughtful, though a little late." And poor palpitating Miss Bailey read.

"Watch out! 'Gum Shoe Tim' is in the building. The Principal caught him on the back stairs and they're going round together. He's as cross as a bear. Greene in dead faint in dressing-room. Says he's going to fire her. Watch out for him, and send the news on. His lay is reading and discipline."

Miss Bailey grew cold with sick and unreasoning fear. As she gazed wide-eyed at the living confirmation of the statement that "Gum Shoe Tim" was "as cross as a bear," the gentle-hearted Principal took the paper from her nerveless grasp.

"It's all right," he assured her. "Mr. O'Shea understands that you had no part in this. It's _all_ right. You are not responsible."

But Teacher had no ears for his soothing. She could only watch with fascinated eyes as the Honourable Timothy reclaimed the note and wrote across it's damning face: "Miss Greene may come to. She is not fired.--T.O'S."

"Here, boy," he called; "take this to your teacher." The puzzled messenger turned to obey, and the Associate Superintendent saw that though his dignity had suffered his power had increased. To the list of those whom he might, if so disposed, devour, he had now added the name of the Principal, who was quick to understand that an unpleasant investigation lay before him. If Miss Bailey could not be held responsible for this system of inter-classroom communication, it was clear that the Principal could.

Every trace of interest had left Mr. O'Shea's voice as he asked:

"Can they read?"

"Oh, yes, they read," responded Teacher, but her spirit was crushed and the children reflected her depression. Still, they were marvellously good and that blundering note had said, "Discipline is his lay." Well, here he had it.

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."