Читать книгу Mothering on Perilous - Lucy S. Furman - Страница 14

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The heads said to me this morning, "We shall give up trying to keep little boys in the school—it is useless, though we need them almost as much as they need us. If there were just some one who loves children to stay there and take a real interest in them, they might be satisfied to remain."

"I love children," I said, "but I would not think of inflicting myself upon them—I am not cheerful enough."

"Cheerful!" they exclaimed, "why, everybody is cheerful here—no time for anything else! Suppose you try it!"

"I really couldn't think of it," I replied; but, fifteen minutes later, under the spell of their optimism, I was moving over from the big house to the small boys' cottage, from which the manual-training teacher was departing to join the big boys over the workshop.

This small cottage is the building in which the work began here five years ago. It is separated from the rest of the school-grounds by a small branch; in its back yard is the wash-house, and beyond this the stable lot slopes down to Perilous Creek. There are four comfortable rooms, neatly papered with magazine pages—a sitting-room, two bedrooms for the boys, and one for me. The woodwork in mine being battered, I sent Philip down to the nearby village for paint. He returned with a rich, rosy red, and began laying it on my mantelpiece with gusto, while Geordie Yonts put shelves in a goods-box for my bureau. Never have I seen a small chunk of a boy with such a large, ingratiating smile as Geordie's.

'Here is Keats back again—he has got to stay with you women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!'

In the midst I heard a call from the road, and saw at the gate a nag bearing a woman and two small boys. "Here is Keats back again—he has got to stay with you women and get l'arning if it kills him dead!" declared his Spartan mother; "and I brung Hen this time, to keep him company—he haint so tender-hearted." She sternly pushed the weeping Keats off the nag, and he flung himself down in the doorway, howling dismally. But little Hen, who cannot be more than nine, walked composedly into the house, looking about him with interest. He stopped before the almost-completed mantelpiece. "Gee, woman," he said, "that 'ere's the dad-burn prettiest fireboard ever I seed!" "If you like it, you shall have the same in your room, and all the rooms," I said. "Suppose you and Keats go down right now and buy me a gallon more of this paint. And I think we need some candy, too—say a quarter's worth of peppermint sticks."

The tears miraculously left Keats's face, they hurried off, and later we had a feast of candy flavored with paint.