Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life Part 18

Becky reposed upon the chatelaine bag and waved her still damp shoes exultantly. Eva lay, face downward beside her, and peered wonderingly deep into the roots of things.

"Don't it smells nice!" she gloated. "Don't it looks nice! My, ain't we havin' the party-time!"

"Don't mention it," said Patrick, in careful imitation of his mother's hostess's manner. "I'm pleased to see you, I'm sure."

"The Central Park is awful pretty," Sadie soliloquized as she lay on her back and watched the waving branches and blue sky far above. "Awful pretty! I likes we should live here all the time."

"Well," began Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein, in slight disparagement of his rival's powers as a cicerone; "well, I ain't seen no lions, nor no rubber-neck-boat-birds. Und we ain't had no rides on nothings. Und I ain't heard no hollers neither."

As if in answer to this criticism there arose upon the road beyond the trees a snorting, panting noise, growing momentarily louder and culminating just as East Side nerves were strained to breaking point, in a long, hoa.r.s.e and terrifying yell. There was a flash of red, a cloud of dust, three other toots of agony, and the thing was gone.

Gone, too, were the explorers and gone their peaceful rest. To the distant end of the field they flew, led by the panic-stricken chaperon, and followed by Eva and Patrick, hand in hand, he making show of a bravery he was far from feeling, and she frankly terrified. In a secluded corner, near the restaurant, the chaperon was run to earth by her breathless charges.

"I seen the lion," she panted over and over. "I seen the fierce, big red lion, und I don't know where is my mamma."

Patrick saw that one of the attractions had failed to attract, so he tried another.

"Let's go and see the cows," he proposed. "Don't you know the po'try piece Miss Bailey learned us about cows?"

Again the emotional chaperon interrupted. "I'm loving much mit Miss Bailey, too," she wailed. "Und I don't know where is she neither." But the pride of learning upheld the others and they chanted in singsong chorus, swaying rhythmically the while from leg to leg:

_"The friendly cow all red and white, I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart Robert Louis Stevenson."_

Becky's tears ceased. "Be there cows in the Central Park?" she demanded.

"Sure," said Patrick.

"Und what kind from cream will he give us? Ice cream?"

"Sure," said Patrick again.

"Let's go," cried the emotional chaperon. A pa.s.sing stranger turned the band in the general direction of the menagerie and the reality of the cow brought the whole "memory gem" into strange and undreamed reality.

Gaily they set out through new and always beautiful ways; through tunnels where feet and voices rang with ghostly boomings most pleasant to the ear; over bridges whence they saw--in partial proof of Isaac Borrachsohn's veracity--"mans und ladies ridin'." Of a surety they rode nothing more exciting than horses, but that was, to East Side eyes, an unaccustomed sight, and Eva opined that it was owing, probably, to the shortness of their watch that they saw no lions and tigers similarly amiable. The cows, too, seemed far to seek, but the trees and gra.s.s and flowers were everywhere. Through long stretches of "for sure country" they picked their way, until they came, hot but happy, to a green and shady summer house on a hill. There they halted to rest, and there Ignatius Aloysius, with questionable delicacy, began to insist once more upon the full measure of his bond.

"We ain't seen the rubber-neck-boat-birds," he complained. "Und we ain't had no rides on nothings."

"You don't know what is polite," cried Eva, greatly shocked at his carping spirit in the presence of a hard-worked host. "You could to think shame over how you says somethings like that on a party."

"This ain't no party," Ignatius Aloysius retorted. "It's a 'scursion.

To a party somebody _gives_ you what you should eat; to a 'scursion you _brings_ it. Und, anyway, we ain't had no rides."

"But we heard a holler," the guest of honour reminded him. "We heard a fierce, big holler from a lion. I don't know do I need a ride on something what hollers. I could to have a fraid maybe."

"Ye wouldn't be afraid on the boats when I hold yer hand, would ye?"

Patrick anxiously inquired, and Eva shyly admitted that, thus supported, she might be undismayed. To work off the pride and joy caused by this avowal, Patrick mounted the broad seat extending all around the summer-house and began to walk clatteringly upon it. The other pilgrims followed suit and the whole party stamped and danced with infinite enjoyment. Suddenly the leader halted with a cry of triumph and pointed grandly out through one of the wistaria-hung openings. Not De Soto upon the banks of the Mississippi nor Balboa above the Pacific could have felt more victorious than Patrick did as he announced:

"There's the water-lake!"

His followers closed in upon him so impetuously that he was borne down under their charge and fell ignominiously out upon the gra.s.s. But he was hardly missed; he had served his purpose. For there, beyond the rocks and lawns and red j.a.ponicas, lay the blue and shining water-lake in its confining banks of green. And upon its softly quivering surface floated the rubber-neck-boat-birds, white and sweetly silent instead of red and screaming--and the superlative length and arched beauty of their necks surpa.s.sed the wildest of Ikey Borrachsohn's descriptions.

And relying upon the strength and politeness of these wondrous birds there were indeed "mans und ladies und boys und little girls" embarking, disembarking, and placidly weaving in and out and round about through scenes of hidden but undoubted beauty.

Over rocks and gra.s.s the army charged towards bliss unutterable, strewing their path with overturned and howling babies of prosperity who, clumsy from many nurses and much pampering, failed to make way.

Past all barriers, accident or official, they pressed, nor halted to draw rein or breath until they were established, beatified, upon the waiting swan-boat.

Three minutes later they were standing outside the railings of the landing and regarding, through welling tears, the placid lake, the sunny slopes of gra.s.s and tree, the brilliant sky and the gleaming rubber-neck-boat-bird which, as Ikey described, "made go its legs,"

but only, as he had omitted to mention, for money. So there they stood, seven sorrowful little figures engulfed in the rayless despair of childhood and the bitterness of poverty. For these were the children of the poor, and full well they knew that money was not to be diverted from its mission: that car-fare could not be squandered on bliss.

Becky's woe was so strong and loud that the bitter wailings of the others served merely as its background. But Patrick cared not at all for the general despair. His remorseful eyes never strayed from the bowed figure of Eva Gonorowsky, for whose pleasure and honour he had striven so long and vainly. Slowly she conquered her sobs, slowly she raised her daisy-decked head, deliberately she blew her small pink nose, softly she approached her conquered knight, gently and all untruthfully she faltered, with yearning eyes on the majestic swans: "Don't you have no sad feelings, Patrick. I ain't got none. Ain't I told you from long, how I don't need no rubber-neck-boat-bird rides?

I don't need 'em! I don't need em! I"--with a sob of pa.s.sionate longing--"I'm got all times a awful scare over 'em. Let's go home, Patrick. Becky needs she should see her mamma, und I guess I needs my mamma too."

A Pa.s.sPORT TO PARADISE

School had been for some months in progress when the footsteps of Yetta Aaronsohn were turned, by a long-suffering Truant Officer, in the direction of Room 18. During her first few hours among its pictures, plants and children, she sadly realized the great and many barriers which separated her from Eva Gonorowsky, Morris Mogilewsky, Patrick Brennan, and other favoured spirits who basked in the sunshine of Teacher's regard. For, with a face too white, hair too straight, dresses too short and legs too long one runs a poor chance in rivalry with more blessed and bedizened children.

Miss Bailey had already appointed her monitors, organized her kingdom, and was so hedged about with servitors and a.s.sistants that her wishes were acted upon before a stranger could surmise them, and her Cabinet, from the Leader of the Line to the Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl, presented an impregnable front to the aspiring public.

During recess time Yetta learned that Teacher was further entrenched in groundless prejudice. Sarah Schrodsky, cla.s.s bureau of etiquette and of _savoir faire_, warned the new-comer:

"Sooner you comes on the school mit dirt on the face she wouldn't to have no kind feelin's over you. She don't lets you should set by her side: she don't lets you should be monitors off of somethings: she don't lets you should make an'thing what is nice fer you."

Another peculiarity was announced by Sadie Gonorowsky: "So you comes late on the school, she has fierce mads. Patrick Brennan, he comes late over yesterday on the morning und she don't lets he should march first on the line."

"Did she holler?" asked Yetta, in an awed whisper.

"No. She don't need she should holler when she has mads. She looks on you mit long-mad-proud-looks und you don't needs no hollers. She could to have mads 'out sayin' nothings und you could to have a scare over it. It's fierce. Und extra she goes und tells it out to Patrick's papa--he's the cop mit b.u.t.tons what stands by the corner--how Patrick comes late und Patrick gets killed as anything over it."

"On'y Patrick ain't cried," interrupted Eva Gonorowsky. She had heard her hero's name and sprang to his defence. "Patrick tells me how his papa hits him awful hacks mit a club. I don't know what is a club, on'y Patrick says it makes him biles on all his bones."

"You gets biles on your bones from off of cops sooner you comes late on the school!" gasped Yetta. "n.o.body ain't tell me nothings over that.

I don't know, neither, what is clubs--"

"I know what they are," the more learned Sarah Schrodsky began. "It's a house mit man's faces in the windows. It's full from mans by night.

Ikey Borrachsohn's papa's got one mit music inside."

"I don't likes it! I have a fraid over it!" wailed Yetta. "I don't know does my mamma likes I should come somewheres where cops mit b.u.t.tons makes like that mit me. I don't know is it healthy fer me."

"Sooner you don't comes late on the school n.o.body makes like that mit you," Eva reminded the panic-stricken new-comer, and for the first three days of her school life Yetta was very early and very dirty.

Miss Bailey, with gentle tact, delivered little lectures upon the use and beauty of soap and water which Eva Gonorowsky applied to and discussed with the new-comer.

"Miss Bailey is a awful nice Teacher," she began one afternoon. "I never in my world seen no nicer teacher. On'y she's fancy."

"I seen how she's fancy," Yetta agreed. "She's got her hair done fancy mit combs und her waist is from fancy goods."