Atlantic Narratives Part 1

Atlantic Narratives.

by Charles Swain Thomas.

INTRODUCTION

FOR those readers who have from early childhood been taught that the best things are the old things, it is oftentimes difficult to revert in imagination to the times when such cla.s.sics as _Paradise Lost_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, and _Robinson Crusoe_, new and unread, were just beginning to make their first tentative steps in the march toward the unknown and unseen goal of enduring fame. Yet the intrinsic literary worth of these cla.s.sics was obviously just as firm in those far-off days of their initial appearance as in these present days of their acquired renown.

But in these present days, with the improved printing-presses moving at high speed and pouring forth everywhere their improvident and unsifted store, the best is too liable to be lost within the swift current of a vast and turbid abundance. It is, therefore, worth while for us--for those of us who have an abiding love of literature--to endeavor to rescue and place in more permanent form the choicest bits of this modern efflux of writing, and make it easily available for a more leisurely and intelligent perusal.

With this thought in mind, I have for several months been reading widely in the files of the _Atlantic Monthly_, with the idea of republishing the best of the recent stories in book form. A partial result of my labors is seen in _Atlantic Narratives_ (First Series), published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in March of the current year. In selecting the twenty-three stories for that volume, I had the college student and the mature reader more definitely in mind. Some of these stories, accordingly, were perhaps a trifle too subtle and a.n.a.lytical for the younger student, though it is interesting to note that the volume immediately found an interested audience, not only among college students and the reading public, but also within the cla.s.srooms of some of our best schools and academies.

Several of the more prominent English teachers, however, expressed a wish for a group of narratives simpler, more direct, and filled with incidents of a commoner and more elemental experience--such as would make an immediate appeal to a younger cla.s.s of readers. I have accordingly made the selections for this second volume of _Atlantic Narratives_ with this particular request in mind. At the same time that I have discarded the subtler and more a.n.a.lytical themes, I have held rigorously to the demand for genuine literary excellence and artistic technique. Discriminating critics will agree that for a writer to limit himself to the narrower confines of the simple and the commonplace and the elemental, may, in particular cases, demand even a finer grace and a higher technique.

The stories here gathered together, while possessing the attributes and range which the English teachers have suggested, are widely varying in appeal and in centres of interest. Miss Mary Antin's story, 'The Lie,'

for example, reveals, in significant portrayal, a unique att.i.tude of mind among the patriotic foreigners; Miss Elizabeth Ashe, Miss Kathleen Norris, and S. H. Kemper have, in their several manners, pleasantly revealed their appreciation of the humorous; Mrs. Comer and Miss Eastman and Mr. Meredith Nicholson have lent a note of idealism; Mr. Joseph Husband and Mr. E. Morlae have contributed true accounts of their personal experiences; and the remaining writers on the list have, in their various individual ways, found still other moods and themes appropriate to their individualities. The net result is a literary variety that merges appropriately, I trust, into a unit of genuine and abiding worth.

For helpful aid in the preparation of this volume, I am indebted to many English teachers, more particularly to Miss Anna Shaughnessy, of the English department in the Newton High School. Houghton Mifflin Company has generously granted me permission to use Mr. Husband's 'The Story of a Coal-Mine.' Mr. George B. Ives, expert critic and proof-reader, of the _Atlantic Monthly_ staff, has read and revised the proofs. Most of all, however, I am indebted to Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, whose friendly counsel and literary ac.u.men have been of constant service.

C. S. T.

BOSTON, Ma.s.s.

_July, 1918_

ATLANTIC NARRATIVES

THE LIE

BY MARY ANTIN

I

THE first thing about his American teachers that struck David Rudinsky was the fact that they were women, and the second was that they did not get angry if somebody asked questions. This phenomenon subverted his previous experience. When he went to _heder_ (Hebrew school), in Russia, his teachers were always men, and they did not like to be interrupted with questions that were not in the lesson. Everything was different in America, and David liked the difference.

The American teachers, on their part, also made comparisons. They said David was not like other children. It was not merely that his mind worked like lightning; those neglected Russian waifs were almost always quick to learn, perhaps because they had to make up for lost time. The quality of his interest, more than the rapidity of his progress, excited comment. Miss Ralston, David's teacher in the sixth grade, which he reached in his second year at school, said of him that he never let go of a lesson till he had got the soul of the matter. 'I don't think grammar is grammar to him,' she said, 'or fractions mere arithmetic. I'm not satisfied with the way I teach these things since I've had David. I feel that if he were on the platform instead of me, geography and grammar would be spliced to the core of the universe.'

One difficulty David's teachers encountered, and that was his extreme reserve. In private conversation it was hard to get anything out of him except 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' or, 'I don't understand, please.'

In the cla.s.sroom he did not seem to be aware of the existence of anybody besides Teacher and himself. He asked questions as fast as he could formulate them, and Teacher had to exercise much tact in order to satisfy him without slighting the rest of her pupils. To advances of a personal sort he did not respond, as if friendship were not among the things he hungered for.

It was Miss Ralston who found the way to David's heart. Perhaps she was interested in such things; they sometimes are, in the public schools.

After the Christmas holidays, the children were given as a subject for composition, 'How I spent the Vacation.' David wrote in a froth of enthusiasm about whole days spent in the public library. He covered twelve pages with an account of the books he had read. The list included many juvenile cla.s.sics in American history and biography; and from his comments it was plain that the little alien worshiped the heroes of war.

When Miss Ralston had read David's composition, she knew what to do. She was one of those persons who always know what to do, and do it. She asked David to stay after school, and read to him, from a blue book with gilt lettering, 'Paul Revere's Ride' and 'Independence Bell.' That hour neither of them ever forgot. To David it seemed as if all the heroes he had dreamed of crowded around him, so real did his teacher's reading make them. He heard the clash of swords and the flapping of banners in the wind. On the blackboard behind Miss Ralston troops of faces appeared and vanished, like the shadows that run across a hillside when clouds are moving in the sky. As for Miss Ralston, she said afterwards that she was the first person who had ever seen the real David Rudinsky. That was a curious statement to make, considering that his mother and father, and sundry other persons in the two hemispheres, had had some acquaintance with David previous to the reading of 'Paul Revere's Ride.'

However, Miss Ralston had a way of saying curious things.

There were many readings out of school hours, after that memorable beginning. Miss Ralston did not seem to realize that the School Board did not pay her for those extra hours that she spent on David. David did not know that she was paid at all. He thought Teacher was born on purpose to read and tell him things and answer his questions, just as his mother existed to cook his favorite soup and patch his trousers. So he brought his pet book from the library, and when the last pupil was gone, he took it from his desk and laid it on Miss Ralston's, without a word; and Miss Ralston read, and they were both happy. When a little Jewish boy from Russia goes to school in America, all sorts of things are likely to happen that the School Board does not provide for. It might be amusing to figure out the reasons.

David's reserve slowly melted in the glowing intimacy of these happy half-hours; still, he seldom made any comment on the reading at the time; he basked mutely in the warmth of his teacher's sympathy. But what he did not say orally he was very likely to say on paper. That also was one of Miss Ralston's discoveries. When she gave out the theme, 'What I Mean to Do When I Grow Up,' David wrote that he was going to be an American citizen, and always vote for honest candidates, and belong to a society for arresting illegal voters. You see David was only a greenhorn, and an excitable one. He thought it a very great matter to be a citizen, perhaps because such a thing was not allowed in the country he came from. Miss Ralston probably knew how it was with him, or she guessed. She was great at guessing, as all her children knew. At any rate, she did not smile as she read of David's patriotic ambitions. She put his paper aside until their next quiet hour, and then she used it so as to get a great deal out of him that he would not have had the courage to tell if he had not believed that it was an exercise in composition.

This Miss Ralston was a crafty person. She learned from David about a Jewish restaurant where his father sometimes took him; a place where a group of ardent young Russians discussed politics over their inexpensive dinner. She heard about a ma.s.s meeting of Russian Jews to celebrate the death of Alexander III, 'because he was a cruel tyrant, and was very bad to Jewish people.' She even tracked some astonishing phrases in David's vocabulary to their origin in the Sunday orations he had heard on the Common, in his father's company.

Impressed by these and other signs of paternal interest in her pupil's education, Miss Ralston was not unprepared for the visit which David's father paid her soon after these revelations. It was a very cold day, and Mr. Rudinsky shivered in his thin, shabby overcoat; but his face glowed with inner warmth as he discovered David's undersized figure in one of the front seats.

'I don't know how to say it what I feel to see my boy sitting and learning like this,' he said, with a vibration in his voice that told more than his words. 'Do you know, ma'am, if I didn't have to make a living, I'd like to stay here all day and see my David get educated. I'm forty years old, and I've had much in my life, but it's worth nothing so much as this. The day I brought my children to school, it was the best day in my life. Perhaps you won't believe me, ma'am, but when I hear that David is a good boy and learns good in school, I wouldn't change places with Vanderbilt the millionaire.'

He looked at Miss Ralston with the eyes of David listening to 'Paul Revere's Ride.'

'What do you think, ma'am,' he asked, as he got up to leave, 'my David will be a good American, no?'

'He ought to be,' said Miss Ralston, warmly, 'with such a father.'

Mr. Rudinsky did not try to hide his gratification.

'I am a citizen,' he said, unconsciously straightening. 'I took out citizen papers as soon as I came to America, four years ago.'

So they came to the middle of February, when preparations for Washington's Birthday were well along. One day the cla.s.s was singing 'America,' when Miss Ralston noticed that David stopped and stared absently at the blackboard in front of him. He did not wake out of his reverie till the singing was over, and then he raised his hand.

'Teacher,' he asked, when he had permission to speak, 'what does it mean, "Land where my fathers died"?'

Miss Ralston explained, wondering how many of her pupils cared to a.n.a.lyze the familiar words as David did.

A few days later, the national hymn was sung again. Miss Ralston watched David. His lips formed the words 'Land where my fathers died,' and then they stopped, set in the pout of childish trouble. His eyes fixed themselves on the teacher's, but her smile of encouragement failed to dispel his evident perplexity.

Anxious to help him over his unaccountable difficulty, Miss Ralston detained him after school.

'David,' she asked him, when they were alone, 'do you understand "America" now?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Do you understand "Land where my fathers died"?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'You didn't sing with the others.'

'No, ma'am.'

Miss Ralston thought of a question that would rouse him.

'Don't you like "America," David?'