Little Aliens Part 4

"I don't know how he says," Morris reported to Miss Bailey. "I says out of Jewish, 'What is your name, little boy?' und I don't know what he says. On'y it ain't names, und it ain't lovin'."

"Very well, dear, you may go back to your place. I'll keep him here beside me for a while," answered Teacher, more than ever at a loss, for the winningness of Morris had never failed to charm a stranger.

At the recess hour, when all the other children filed down into the yard, Teacher sent Patrick Brennan with a little note to Mr. Eissler, the teacher of the biggest boys, those nearly ready for graduation. He was an elderly man wearing well in the service to which the n.o.blest of his race have always devoted themselves. He and Miss Bailey were great friends, and much of the understanding of this alien race--its habits, its emotions, and its innate refinement--the understanding which made her reign in Room 18 so peaceful and beneficent, she had acquired from him, and from the books he lent her.

"Dear Mr. Eissler," ran the note. "Will you come to Room 18 when you are at leisure? I have rather an interesting specimen of Child Life which I am keeping for your inspection."

During the short period which had elapsed between the stranger's arrival and the departure of First Readers, the new-comer had undergone an entire change of manner. Not that he had softened toward his little future companions. Rather he grew in hatred and vindictiveness as the busy morning progressed. It was his att.i.tude toward Miss Bailey which changed. In the Princ.i.p.al's office and on the way through the halls he had seemed to waver on the brink of friendliness. But he had sat beside her desk and had seen her moving up and down through the narrow streets of her kingdom, encouraging here, laughing there, explaining with patient care and detail, laying a friendly hand on bent little shoulders and setting hair ribbons more jauntily erect--behaving, in fact, with a freedom and affection most evidently reflected and magnified by her subjects. And as he watched her his little mouth lost all its softness, and the hard, inscrutable look disfigured him again.

When Mr. Eissler, in response to the summons, opened the door, the newcomer's back was toward it. He wheeled at the sound, and clear and quick he lashed out his single phrase.

Miss Bailey chanced to be looking at her old friend, and at the child's voice saw him cringe and shrink as if from a blow.

"There it is again," she cried. "That's all we can get him to say. Tell me, Mr. Eissler, _what_ does it mean?"

She got no answer.

The man, in all the dignity of his cutaway and his white linen, was glaring at the child, and the child, in his ridiculous rags, pitiful, starved, and dirty, was looking the man over from top to toe with contemptuous, careless eyes. They stood so for some s.p.a.ce, and it was the man who turned away.

"I will not pretend not to understand," said he to Teacher; "but I must decline to translate those words. They bring back--they bring back! Ah, G.o.d! what they bring back!"

"Ah, yes, I know!" said Miss Bailey, in vague but ready sympathy. "I'm very, very sorry."

While this conversation was in progress its object was wandering about Room 18, surveying its pictures, the canary, the gold-fish bowl, and the flowery window-boxes with a blase air. Occasionally he glanced at Miss Bailey with unfriendly disillusionment. And upon one of these occasions Mr. Eissler, at Teacher's request, asked him his name.

The boy answered at greater length than before, but, judging by the man's face, in equally offensive language, and Mr. Eissler turned to Miss Bailey.

"The Princ.i.p.al will have some difficulty," said he, "in finding a teacher who could speak that child's language. It's Russian, pure Court Russian, and not spoken by our people except when they make a special study of it. I know it, a little."

"And do you care to tell me," asked Miss Bailey, "any part of what he said just now?"

"He says," the man replied, "that he will not speak to Jews or to--and by this he means you--a seeming Christian, who makes the Jew her friend, and allows Jewish babies to touch her hands. You've read of the Russian autocratic spirit. Well! there you see it. Even in a little child. It's born in them."

"But how did it get here?" marvelled Miss Bailey. "Here, on the East Side of New York, where he must be just about as popular as a wolf cub?"

"Just about," answered Eissler. "Of course I'm not going to pretend to tell you how this particular specimen got here. We've had one or two cases where the Jews, driven out, kidnapped a Russian child in revenge.

And sometimes Nihilism and other Socialistic societies draw Jew and Russian together. Perhaps the boy's mother is in Siberia digging sulphur. Perhaps she's in Petersburg, designing becoming mourning. But from the look of the boy and the Truant Officer's account of him, I feel pretty safe in saying she isn't about here."

"Yes, I think you're safe in that. He hasn't been washed in a month."

"He'll be better after you've had him awhile," said Mr. Eissler gallantly. "I back you against Hagenbeck as a taming influence."

"You flatter me," laughed Miss Bailey. "But I'll try. Of course I'll try." But she had scant opportunity.

At luncheon time the new little boy departed with the others, and at afternoon session he was not among them, as by law prescribed.

Day after day pa.s.sed and brought no sign of him. Teacher reported her bereavement to the authorities, and enjoined the First Readers to produce the boy or tidings of him, and although they failed to procure the boy, the tidings were not wanting. They rarely are in East Side affairs. Morris Mowgelewsky was the first to procure definite information.

"I seen that boy," he announced with pride. "I seen him runnin' down Scannel Street, und I calls und says you likes you should see him in the school, on'y he runs by a cellar und don't says nothings. He puts him on just like he was here, und he had awful cold looks. Teacher, he ain't got no hat, and the snow was coming by his hair. I looks in the cellar und I had a 'fraid over it the whiles nothings stand in it on'y push-carts und boxes."

"But do you think that he lives in the cellar?" queried Teacher.

"He don't _lives_ at all," replied Morris. "He don't _boards_ even. He runs all times."

"Runs?" queried Miss Bailey.

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am, runs. He lays in sleep by barrels; comes somebody, und he runs. He lays in sleep on sidewalks by bak'ry stores where heat and smell comes; comes somebody, und he runs. He lays in sleep by wagons, maybe, maybe by stables where horses is, und straw.

_All_ places what he could he lays in sleep, und _all_ places where he lays comes somebody und he runs."

"What's he always running from, Morris?"

"Teacher, I dun'no. He ain't got no 'fraids. I guess maybe he don't likes n.o.body shall make nothings mit him. I tells him how you says he shall come on the school, und what you think? He hits me a hack in mine face, und runs on the cellar."

"I'd like to see him hit me," said Patrick Brennan, son of the Policeman on the Beat, a n.o.ble scion of a n.o.ble sire. "Me pop he wouldn't stand fer no funny play," and urged by Miss Bailey's friendly att.i.tude toward Morris, he boasted, "I'll bring him to school if ye want me to; I ain't afraid of him." And one afternoon some days later he did appear with his "new little friend."

It had taken six big boys, Patrick, and the janitor to secure his attendance, and he hardly reaped the benefit which so much effort deserved, for, except that he was thinner and in a wildly blazing pa.s.sion of indignation, his second attendance at Room 18 was much like his first.

Again his studies were interrupted for several days, and it was the Truant Officer who next restored him to the Halls of Learning. Between these two appearances Morris had procured further intelligence.

"That new boy," he began as always, "that new boy he is in bizzness."

"So that's the reason that he fights against school!" cried Teacher, well accustomed to the interference of the sweat shop. "I'm very glad to know his reason for staying away. I was beginning to fear he was not happy here--that he didn't like us."

"Teacher, he don't," said Morris, with the beautiful candor which adorned all his conversation. "He hates us."

"But why, why?" demanded Miss Bailey.

"He hates the childrens," the still candid Morris explained, "the whiles they is Sheenies. He hates you the whiles you is Krisht."

"Rather an unfriendly att.i.tude altogether," commented Teacher. "And how do you know he hates me because I'm a Christian?"

"My mamma tells me how it is. She says he has mads the whiles you is Krisht und makes all things what is loving mit Sheenies. My mamma says he is Russians; und Russians they don't makes like that mit Sheenies.

Teacher, no ma'am, loving ain't what Russians makes mit us. They makes all things what is fierce."

"I know, I know," said Constance Bailey, and then--"What is the little boy's business?"

"Teacher, he's a fire-lighter."

"A fire-lighter," echoed Miss Bailey, with visions of arson before her eyes. "A fire-lighter, did you say?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am, he is a fire-lighter, but sooner he wants he could to come on the school the whiles he ain't got no bizzness on'y Sat.u.r.days."

And then Miss Bailey understood. She had heard of certain stranded waifs left high and dry when the ebb of Christianity receded before the flood of Judaism, and New York's great East Side, once a fashionable district, then claimed by a thrifty Irish element, became a Ghetto. It was the Jewish Sabbatical Law which gave the derelicts an opportunity to earn a few pennies every Sat.u.r.day, for no orthodox Jew may kindle fire on the Sabbath. And no frugal Jew, even in the impossible circ.u.mstance of being able to afford it, will keep the stove alight all through Friday night. Hence he employs a Christian to do the work he would not stoop to.

And this was the occupation of that amazing new boy! Miss Bailey clearly saw the path of her duty, and it led her, the lighter of fires in tow, straight to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. For some days, however, this path was closed to her conscientious feet. The boy was lost again, and Miss Bailey, who took the welfare of her charges very much to heart, was seriously distressed and uneasy. The First Readers were enlisted as a corps of detectives, but though they prowled in likely and unlikely spots, they brought no news of the stranger.

A week went by. The Princ.i.p.al, the Truant Officer, Patrick Brennan's father, were all informed and enlisted in the quest. But day followed day empty of news. Mr. Eissler could offer no suggestion, though he promised that if the child should reappear he would make further and more patient efforts to elicit some information from him. And then quite casually one afternoon Sergeant Brennan appeared in Room 18, with a bundle of rags under his arm.

"Here he is for you, Miss," he announced, waving away her acknowledgments with a stout blue arm before he removed his helmet and dried his heated brow. "I seen him several times since you spoke about him, but never run him down until now."