Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life Part 22

"You can see this beautiful green joy sometimes when you are in the street," Miss Langdon ambled on; "but you see it best when you are here."

Three hands shot up into the quiet air.

"And I don't think the children in the other rooms see it as well as you do."

"No ma'am," cried a delighted chorus, and eight more hands were raised.

Prompting was reckless now and hands sprang up in all directions.

"No, I don't think they do," Miss Langdon agreed. "I think perhaps that Heaven meant it just for you. Just for the good little boys and girls in this room."

The enthusiasm grew wild and general. Miss Langdon turned a glance of triumph upon Miss Bailey, and was somewhat surprised by the very scarlet confusion which she saw.

"It's all in the method," she said with pride, and, to the cla.s.s: "Now, can you tell me the name of this beautiful green thing which makes us all so happy?"

And the answer was a great, glad cry of: "Teacher's jumper!"

"What?"

"Teacher's jumper!" shouted the children as before, and Eva Gonorowsky, who had been the first to guess the jocular lady's meaning, put it more plainly.

"Missis Bailey's got a green waist. Green is all the style this year."

Miss Langdon sat down suddenly; stared; gasped; and then, as she was a clever woman, laughed.

"Miss Bailey," she said, "you have a problem here. I wish you all success, but the apperceiving basis is, as you say, very limited."

To the solving of this problem Teacher bent all her energies. Through diligent research she learned that the reading aloud of standard poems has been known to do wonders of mental and moral uplifting. But standard poems are not commonly adapted to minds six years old and of foreign extraction, so that Miss Bailey, though she explained, paraphrased, and commented, hardly flattered herself that the result was satisfactory. In courteous though puzzled silence the First Reader Cla.s.s listened to enough of the poetry of the ages to have lifted them as high as Heaven. Wordsworth, Longfellow, Browning, any one who had seen and written of the beauty of bird or growing thing, was pressed into service. And then one day Miss Bailey brought her Sh.e.l.ley down and read his "Ode to the Skylark."

"Now, don't you think that's a pretty thing?" she asked. "Did you hear how the lark went singing, bright and clear, up and up and up into the blue sky?"

The children were carefully attentive, as ever, but not responsive.

Morris Mogilewsky felt that he had alone understood the nature of this story. It was meant to amuse; therefore it was polite that one should be amused.

"Teacher fools," he chuckled. "Larks ain't singin' in skies."

"How do you know?" asked Miss Bailey.

"'Cause we got a lark by our house. It's a from tin lark mit a cover."

"A tin lark! With a cover!" Miss Bailey exclaimed. "Are you sure, dear, that you know what you are talking about?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an, I know," Morris began deliberately. "My papa, he has a lark. It's a from tin lark mit a cover. Und its got a handle too. Und my papa he takes it all times on the store for buy a lark of beer."

"Lager beer! Oh, shade of Sh.e.l.ley!" groaned Miss Bailey's spirit, but aloud she only said: "No, my dear, I wasn't reading about lager beer.

A lark is a little bird."

"Well," Morris began with renewed confidence, "I know what is a bird.

My auntie she had one from long. She says like that, she should give it to me, but my mamma she says, 'No, birds is foolishness.' But I know what is a bird. He scups on a stick in a cage."

"So he does," agreed Miss Bailey, rightly inferring from Morris's expressive pantomime that to "scup" was to swing. "But sometimes he flies up into the sky in the country, as I was reading to you. Were you ever in the country?"

"What country?" asked Morris. "Russia? I comes out of Russia."

"No, not Russia. Not any particular country. Just the open country where the flowers grow."

"No ma'an, I ain't seen it," said the child gently. "But I was once to Tompkins Square. On'y it was winter und snow lays on it. I ain't seen no flowers."

"And do none of you know anything about the country?" asked Teacher sadly.

"Oh, yiss ma'an, I know," said Eva Gonorowsky. "The country is the Fresh Air Fund."

"Then you've been there," cried Miss Bailey. "Tell us about it, Eva."

"No ma'an, I ain't seen it," said Eva proudly. "I'm healthy. But a girl on my block she had a sickness und so she goes. She tells me all times how is the country. It's got gra.s.s stickin' right up out of it.

Gra.s.s und flowers! No ma'an, I ain't never seen it: I don't know where is it even, but oh! it could to be awful pretty!"

"Yes, honey, it is," said Teacher. "Very, very pretty. When I was a little girl I lived in the country."

"All day?" asked Morris.

"Yes, all day."

"Und all night?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, poor Miss Bailey," crooned Eva. "It could to be a awful sickness what you had."

"No, I was very well. I lived in the country because my father had a house there, and I played all day in the garden."

"Weren't you scared of the lions?" asked Patrick in incredulous admiration.

"We had no lions," Miss Bailey explained apologetically. "But we had rabbits and guinea pigs and a horse and a cow and chickens and ducks and--and--"

"Und eleflints," Morris suggested hope-fully.

"No, we had no elephants," Teacher was forced to admit. "But we had a turtle and a monkey."

"Did your papa have a organ?" asked Sadie Gonorowsky. "Organs mit monkeys is stylish for mans."

"Think shame how you says!" cried her cousin Eva reproachfully. "Teacher ain't no Ginney. Organs ain't for Sheenies. They ain't for Krishts even. They all, all for Ginneys."

"So's monkeys," said Sadie, unabashed. "Und organs mit monkeys _is_ stylish."

The children's deep interest in the animal kingdom gave Miss Bailey the point of departure for which she had been seeking. She abandoned Wordsworth and Sh.e.l.ley, and she bought a rabbit and a pair of white mice. The First Reader Cla.s.s was enchanted. A canary in a gilded cage soon hung before the window and "scupped" most energetically while gold-fish in their bowl swam lazily back and forth. From these living texts, Miss Bailey easily preached care and kindness towards all creatures, and Room 18 came to be an energetic though independent branch of the S.P.C.A.

The most sincere and zealous worker in the new field was Morris Mogilewsky, Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl. Day after day he earned new smiles and commendations from his liege lady by reports of cats and kittens fed and warmed, and of dogs rescued from torment. He was awakened one night by the cries of an outcast cat and followed the sounds to the roof of his tenement only to find that they came from another roof further down the block. The night was wet and bl.u.s.tering, but Morris was undismayed. He crawled over walls and round chimneys until he reached the cat and dragged her back to safety and refreshment.

When, in the early dark of the next morning, Mrs. Mogilewsky discovered that the elements of the family breakfast had been lavished on the wanderer, she showed some natural resentment, but when she understood that such prodigally was encouraged, even rewarded, in high places, her wrath was very great.