Читать книгу Little Aliens - Myra Kelly - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Isaac Borrachsohn, Room 18's only example of the gilded youth, could never be described as a brilliant scholar, but on a morning in early April Miss Bailey found him more trying even than was his wont. He was plainly the centre of some sub-evident interest. First Readers nudged one another and whispered together, casting awed or envious looks upon him, and when the hour for recess came he formed the centre of an excited and gesticulating crowd. But Isaac Borrachsohn had never quite outgrown his distrust for his Krisht teacher. It was fostered by all his womankind at home, and was insisted upon almost as an article of faith by his grandfather the Rabbi. It was not to him, therefore, that Miss Bailey looked for an explanation of the general excitement, though she knew that before the day should pass she would hear several accounts of it.

It was after three o'clock; the prescribed school work was over and friendly converse was the order of the hour. The Board of Monitors, closing the door carefully upon the last unofficial First Reader, gathered solemnly round Teacher and proceeded to relate Isaac Borrachsohn's saga of his latest adventure.

"He says like that," said Eva Gonorowsky, Monitor of Pencil Points, in awed and envious tones. "He says he goes by his papa's side in a carriage on Games in Gardens."

"I guess maybe he lies," Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of Window Boxes, suggested with some disparagement. "I was to Gardens—Summer Gardens—mit my papa und no games stands in 'em. Stands bottles from beer und pretzels on'y. I ain't seen nothings like how Ikey says."

"And what does Ikey say?" asked Miss Bailey.

"Well," began Morris Mowgelewsky, Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl, "Ikey says Gardens is a house mit thousens und thousens from mans und ladies. Und they all sets by side theirselves, und they yells somethin' fierce. Und in Gardens there ain't no upstairs, on'y thousens und thousens from lights. Ikey says on the Bowery even he ain't never seen how there is lights in Gardens."

"Yes, dear, Ikey was quite right," said Miss Bailey, beginning to discern the outline of Madison Square Garden with inter-scholastic athletic games in progress. "The mans and ladies" were, of course, the proud parents, sweethearts, relations, and various colleagues, and the "yells" were their unconfined joy and triumph.

"And flags," supplemented Patrick Brennan, Monitor of Blackboards and Leader of the Line. "I says to that show-off, Ikey Borrachsohn, 'Is there any flowers in that garden?' And he says he didn't see none 'cept what the ladies had on 'em. And all the rest was flags. Flags hangin' down out of the sky. Flags up in the lights, and everybody wavin' flags. Gee! It was pretty if it's true."

"It's quite true, dear," Miss Bailey assured him. "I was there one night last week, and it was just as Isaac says."

"You dun'no all what Ikey says," Morris intervened. "He says a man comes mit a great big hammer—a awful big hammer mit a long handle. Und he takes that hammer—Missis Bailey this is how Ikey says—und he makes it shall go round und round by his head. Und then he takes und he throws it where some mans stands, und Ikey says he had mad looks, he was red on the face even, over somethings."

"If any one got fresh with hammers on my pop's beat," Patrick Brennan interrupted, "they'd get pinched so quick they wouldn't know what struck 'em, and Ikey says they was lots of police officers standin' around doin' nothin'. Ain't he the liar!"

"Not this time," said Miss Bailey; "he was telling you the truth."

Then Nathan Spiderwitz took up the tale.

"Und sooner that man makes, like Morris says, mit hammers, comes more mans mit more hammers, und they throws 'em. Und comes more mans mit from iron balls so big like Ikey's head, und they throws 'em, und the ladies und the mans they stands und yells, und music plays, und the ladies make go their flags und scups up und down on their seats. Und the mans mit those balls und hammers they has awful mads. They is red on the face, und they tries und they tries—Missis Bailey, Ikey says it's somethin' fierce how they tries—und they couldn't never to hit nobody."

"They weren't trying to," Miss Bailey tried to explain, but Isaac's picturesque recital was not lightly to be effaced.

"I guess games in gardens ain't so awful healthy for somebody," said Yetta

"I guess games in gardens ain't so awful healthy for somebody," was Yetta Aaronsohn's pronouncement. "My mamma says you could to make yourself a sickness sooner you runs awful hard, on'y Ikey, he says a whole bunch from mans und boys they chases theirselves like an'thing. They runs und they runs, und all the times the mans und the ladies scups und yells und makes go their flags. Ikey says it looks like a awful fight is comin', on'y these boys und mans they couldn't never run to catch theirselves, und so there ain't no fight. Ikey had a awful sad over it."

It was evident all through this recital that Eva Gonorowsky had a communication of a more important and confidential nature upon her conscientious little mind. When at last the other Monitors had scattered to their duties, and Room 18 was in a satisfactory stage midway 'twixt chaos and order, Eva drew Miss Bailey into the corner between the window and the bookcase.

"Nobody ain't told you all what Ikey says," she whispered, with much the same gusto as she had seen her elders display as they gathered close about the very heart of a scandal. "Everybody has fraids over telling you."

"Afraid!" repeated Miss Bailey in surprise, well knowing this to be the last feeling she inspired. "Afraid to tell me!"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am. They has fraids. It's somethin' fierce what Ikey says. He says like that: all those mans what couldn't to catch nothings und couldn't to hit nothings. He says somethin' fierce over all those mans." And here Eva pressed her professionally soiled hand over her mouth and regarded Miss Bailey with scandalized eyes.

"Go on, dear," said Miss Bailey encouragingly. "If Isaac has told you and Morris and the others I might as well know it too."

Eva removed her hand. "Ikey Borrachsohn, he dun'no what is polite for him," she made reply. "He tells it on everybody—in the yard even, where the babies is—he tells it out. He needs he shall get hit off of somebody."

"Now you tell me," said Miss Bailey, "and I'll see about Isaac."

"He says," whispered Eva, "how all those mans they don't puts them on like mans mit suits und hats und pants und coats—no, ma'am, that ain't how they makes—they puts them on like ladies und like little girls. On'y," and Miss Bailey had to stoop to catch this last overwhelming sentence—"on'y they don't puts them on so much."

"Why of course not, Eva," answered Miss Bailey, repressing with stern effort an inclination to wild laughter. This repression she knew to be the corner-stone of the First Reader's faith in her. She never, openly, laughed at their little confidences. She was a serious-minded person, always ready to discuss a serious problem seriously. Quite gravely now she pointed out to Eva the difficulty of violent exertion in street attire.

"You yourself," she amplified, "take off your coat and hat when you come to school, and yet you only read and write a little, and do quiet things like that. Now these men and boys, dear, that Isaac Borrachsohn has been telling about were running and exercising just as hard as they could; you know how hot we sometimes get here when we only stand in our places and exercise our arms and legs."

Eva was impressed, but not yet quite convinced.

"It ain't," she insisted, a gentle last word, unanswerable, overwhelming, "it ain't hats und coats what Ikey Borrachsohn says them mens in Gardens takes off."

Misunderstandings of this sort are a natural part of the order of the day in class rooms such as Room 18, where children, alien to every American custom, and prejudiced by religion and precept against most of them, are undergoing their training in citizenship. Generations of muffling and swaddling were behind Eva's shocked little face. Her ancestors had not taken their recreation in running or rowing or swimming. And the scene at Madison Square Garden was as foreign to the First Readers' traditions as a warm afternoon in Athens during the age of Pericles would have been to a New England spinster. It was the sort of misunderstanding which must be faced instantly, and immediately after assembly on the next morning Miss Bailey faced it.

"Isaac Borrachsohn has told you all," she commenced pleasantly, marshalling the wavering eyes before her with her own, steady and clear, "of how he went to Madison Square Garden with his father and saw the games."

Isaac squirmed in his place.

"And he told you," she continued, "how he saw men and boys running races, and trying how far they could throw a big heavy hammer and a big iron ball. Isaac didn't quite understand what they were doing, but they were not trying to hit any one, and not trying to catch one another, and there was no thought at all of a fight. The boy who ran fastest got a prize, the boy who threw the hammer farthest got a prize. And there were a great many other prizes for jumping and all kinds of things. And," she continued, redoubling the concentration in her eyes, "did Isaac tell you how those boys were dressed?"

A gasp and a shiver swept through Room 18.

"Well, if he didn't, I will. They wore the very lightest clothes they could get. They wanted to be free and cool. They couldn't run fast or jump far with all their heavy every-day clothes on. Exercise makes people very warm, you know. It was a great help to those boys to be dressed in cool white clothes.

"I was at the games," she continued, "as I was telling some of the boys yesterday afternoon, and I enjoyed them ever so much. I was just wishing that you were all there too. The girls could have sat with me, and the boys could have run in the ring. I've watched you all playing in the yard, and I know what good runners some of you are. And then when they gave you prizes we, the girls and I, would have waved our flags and cheered just like the ladies Isaac told you about. Now wouldn't that be grand?" she cried, and the First Readers vociferously agreed with her, though Yetta Aaronsohn, the hypochondriacal, was still of the opinion that "wind on the legs ain't healthy for nobody."

Cold indeed would be the heart of any masculine First Reader who could see, unmoved, the picture conjured up of Teacher's words. They were well accustomed to impromptu races, run on a course all thick beset with push-carts, ash cans, and humanity. Other tests of physical strength, with the exception by an occasional hand-to-hand conflict, neither determined, scientific, nor conclusive, were practically unknown. But to run on a prepared course surrounded by a stationary and admiring audience, of which Miss Bailey and the feminine First Readers formed an important part, was quite a different thing. Then, too, "prizes" was an alluring word. Teacher had shown it to mean articles of price and great attractiveness. The "clean-hands-for-a-week" prize, won by Sadie Gonorowsky, with Isidore Applebaum as a close second, had been a little clasp pin of the American flag in enamel, and the "cleanest-shoes-for-a-month" prize had been a pair of roller skates.

The masculine element of the Room 18's Board of Monitors met that afternoon in the cellar of a recently burned tenement to discuss the situation. If it would pleasure Miss Bailey to see her adherents racing round a garden in abbreviated costumes, there was, they decided, no very serious reason against giving her that pleasure. It was only a shade more unreasonable than other desires of hers to which they had bent their energies, and since there was question of reward, it became even more a duty and a pleasure to oblige her.

"But we ain't got no Gardens," Nathan Spiderwitz pointed out.

"We'll use my yard," said Patrick. "When me mother has company she always calls our yard a garden. It's got a tree in it, and we can get some flags to hang on the clothes line. I was askin' me big brother last night, and he knows all about them games. He'll tell us mor'n Ikey Borrachsohn can about how the thing goes, and when we get it fixed just right, we'll have Miss Bailey and the girls come round some Saturday morning and see us run and jump. Say, it'll be great! I can run faster than any feller in the class; an' I bet I can jump higher too, an' I bet I can throw things farther, too, an' I bet I can lick ye all pole-vaultin', too. Me brother was tellin' me about that."

"I don't know what is 'pole-vaultin' even," said Morris, and asked with some natural curiosity what parts he and other possible competitors were to take in these Games in Gardens.

"Oh, you," answered Patrick, with happy condescension, "you all is goin' to get licked. That's what you're goin' to do. Don't you worry."

But this rôle did not appeal strongly to either of his colleagues.

"I don't know do I likes gettin' licked," Morris objected with some reason.

"Und I don't know will I get licked," said Nathan Spiderwitz, the valorous. "I jumped once, und I run too. I jumped off of a wagon. A awful big grocery wagon, mit crackers on it. Und I jumped when it was goin'. Und I run like an'thin'."

"You was throwed off," taunted Patrick, "you was throwed off by the man when he seen you hookin' crackers."

"Ye lie," said Nathan frankly. "I jumped as soon as he seen me, und I guess I can jump some more. You ain't the only boy what can run und jump, you old-show-of-freshy Irisher."

It was with difficulty that the peaceful Monitor of the Gold Fish Bowl restored harmony, and time was added unto difficulty before the Games in Gardens were satisfactorily arranged.

Had it been possible to consult Miss Bailey, all would have been plain and simple sailing. She was the First Reader's home port, but she was now blockaded for her own benefit. The suggestions of Patrick's big brother were overwhelming and technical. And Isaac Borrachsohn, through constant questionings, grew at once so extravagant and so hazy in his recollections as to be practically useless. Patrick's mother, when applied to for a morning's use of her yard, was curt and kind.

"Use it if ye will," said she, "but don't clutter it, an' don't fall out of me pear tree."

It was at about the time of the densest discouragement that Miss Bailey, all unknowing, came to their relief. She brought to Room 18 and passed about among the First Readers a copy of an illustrated "Weekly" containing pictures of the later and more important contest than that which Isaac had witnessed. And Ignatius Aloysius Diamentstein, by that time admitted to the track team, appropriated it at the lunch hour, and thereafter it served as "The Complete Guide to Games in Gardens."

The day was set. A Saturday morning in late May. The guests in ordinary were invited. In other words the feminine First Readers had been told that they would be admitted to Patrick Brennan's yard at ten o'clock on that May morning, on condition that each would bring a flag and say nothing to the uninvited boys. The free-for-all spirit was not endorsed by Patrick, and the contestants were only seven, picked and chosen, be it said, with a nice adjustment to Patrick's own prowess, for "I ain't goin' to be licked in me own yard," had been his steadfast determination throughout.

Nathan Spiderwitz was given to inspirations always inconvenient and distressing. He experienced one at this eleventh hour when all the arrangements were completed, and it remained only to invite the guest of honor.

"Who gives the prizes?" he demanded, as he and Patrick were superintending the construction of a grand stand made of soap-boxes and a broken sofa. "Where is the prizes, and who gives 'em?" he repeated.

"Mind your own business," was Patrick's useful answer. It showed a bold front and left time for thought.

"Who gives 'em?" insisted Nathan.

"Don't you worry 'bout prizes," muttered Patrick darkly, "they ain't none of your business. You got a swell chanst to git any prizes in my yard. Not when I'm in it, ye don't."

Thus with Nathan. But with Morris he was more frank.

"There's one thing," said he, when he found that crack long-jumper in the boys' yard at luncheon time, "what I'm going to let you do."

"Is it nice for me?" queried the Custodian of Gold Fish.

"Great!" answered Patrick. "I'm goin' to let ye ast Miss Bailey to the party."

Morris glowed with pride and importance. "I likes that," he breathed.

"Well, you can do it. Ye don't want to tell her what kind of a party it is. Just go up to her after school and say that 'we invites her to come to my yard at ten o'clock in the mornin', and bring seven prizes with her.'"

"Oh—oh-h-h! I couldn't to say nothings like that," Morris remonstrated. "I guess you don't know what is polite. I don't know has Missis Bailey got seven prizes."

"She'll get 'em all right, all right," Patrick assured him; "ain't she always givin' 'em around? You just tell her 'ten o'clock and seven prizes.' It's all right, I tell you. I could'a showed ye the picture on that paper of a lady standin' up givin' out the prizes. An' Miss Bailey's the only lady goin' to be there."

"It ain't polite," Morris maintained. But he had during these last athletic weeks broken so many of his canons and his laws that he accepted this last command with more docility than Patrick had expected.

"A party!" cried Miss Bailey, "now isn't that nice? And for to-morrow morning. Of course I'll be there. And what kind of a party is it to be, dear?"

"It's something you says you likes you shall see. Und on the party you shall see it. Und you shall have a s'prise over it."

"You grow more interesting every moment," said Teacher. "Tell me more. I love surprises."

"There ain't no more," Morris answered, "on'y," and he took his conversational running-jump, "on'y maybe you shall bring seven prizes mit. I says maybe you ain't got seven prizes. On'y Patrick says I shall say it out like that, 'you shall come on the party und bring seven prizes.'"

"Seven!" reflected Teacher. "That is rather a large order, but I think I can manage it. Have you any idea, Morris, of what kind they should be?"

"Teacher, yiss, ma'am," Morris answered, "'fer-boys' prizes."

"I think I understand," and Miss Bailey smiled at him. "You may tell Patrick that I and 'seven fer-boys' prizes' will be at his house in the morning."

She regarded the subject as closed. Not so Morris. Through all the succeeding occupations of the afternoon an idea persisted with him, and when the Teacher left the building at last she found him waiting for her on the wide steps.

"You want me, dear?" she asked.

"I shall tell you somethings," Morris began in evident embarrassment.

"Yes, dear."

"It's over those prizes."

"Yes, Morris."

"Miss Bailey, it's like this. You don't need to care sooner you ain't got on'y six prizes. Seven prizes I guess costs bunches und bunches from money. So six prizes comes on Patrick's yard, that's all right. Stands one boy what don't needs no prize."

"He must be a strange little boy," commented Teacher. "I never before heard of a boy who didn't like prizes."

"Oh, he likes 'em; how he likes 'em. I ain't said he ain't got feelin's over 'em. On'y it's like this: he don't needs you shall buy prizes for him the whiles you got to buy six prizes already."

"I think I understand, dear," Teacher answered, and she set out for the shopping district and bought six prizes of great glitter and little worth. But the seventh was such a watch as a boy might use and treasure through all the years of his boyhood.

The great day dawned bright and clear. Miss Bailey's entrance, punctual and parcel-laden, in a festive frilly frock and a flowery hat, caused something almost like silence to fall upon the scene of the coming tournament. Eva Gonorowsky clasped Teacher's unoccupied hand, Sarah Schodsky and Yetta Aaronsohn relieved her of her bundles. Sadie Gonorowsky gesticulated madly from the place upon the sofa which she was reserving with all the expanse of her outspread skirt.

Teacher approached the grand stand and took her place. The feminine First Readers swarmed upon the soap boxes. But neither leg nor arm nor even eye was moved by the seven masculine First Readers drawn up in the centre of the yard. Flags waved in such profusion and such uniformity that even Miss Bailey's obligation to her hosts could not blind her to the fact that she had at last found the fifty-two American flags pasted together by the First Reader Class when Washington's Birthday was in the air and the offing. Two weeks ago she had missed them out of the cupboard, and neither janitor nor Monitor could give her tidings of them. They looked very well, she was forced to admit, dangling from high fence and clothes line. And very bright and joyant was the whole scene. The little girls in their bright colors. The sky so blue. Mrs. Brennan's pear tree in sturdy bloom. All was brilliant with a sense of Spring save the seven dark-clothed figures in the centre of the yard.

"Can you guess what kind from party it is?" shrieked Sadie Gonorowsky from the top of a tottering soap box to which she had withdrawn.

"Why, it's—" Teacher began, recognizing some elements of the scene, but made uncertain by the seven dark little figures, "of course it's——"

"It's 'Games in Gardens,'" shouted the little girls, waving their flags like mad and "scupping" so energetically that two disappeared, "it's Games in Gardens, und you're goin' to have a s'prise."

One of the dark and silent figures found speech and motion.

"Set down an' shut up," commanded Patrick Brennan. "We're goin' to begin."

The shutting up would have been effected automatically by the next proceeding of the seven. They laid violent hands upon themselves and in an instant a flat little heap of dark clothes marked the centre of the yard, and Patrick Brennan, Ignatius Aloysius Diamentstein, Isidore Applebaum, Nathan Spiderwitz, Isidore Wishnewsky, Isaac Belchatosky, and Morris Mowgelewsky stood forth in costumes reported by Isaac Borrachsohn, sanctioned by Miss Bailey, and owned by members of the audience.

A moment of tense silence followed. Every eye sought Teacher, and Constance Bailey knew that upon her first word or look depended success or failure, pride or everlasting shame. There was no time to wonder how the mistake arose. No time to remember what she had said that could possibly have been interpreted to mean this. They were her gallant little knights doing her uncomprehended bidding, and trying—at what sacrifice she guessed—to pleasure their liege lady.

Again she had blundered. Again she had failed to quite bridge the distance. The wrong word lay somewhere back in her effort to undo Isaac Borrachsohn's mischief. And she had wrought mischief ten times worse. The most devoted of her charges stood there in the clear May sunshine; the funniest, most pathetic, most ridiculous little figures, with their thin little arms and legs and their long little necks: proud, embarrassed, wistful.

"My dear boys," she cried suddenly, "how fine you look! How beautiful and—and—clean you are," she went on a little bit at random. "And now we are going to have games, and the girls and I will cheer the winners."

"Be ye s'prised?" yelled Patrick in irrepressible pride.

"Dreadfully!" she answered. "Dreadfully, Patrick dear."

"Then we'll begin," answered the master of ceremonies. "One, git in yer places! Two, fer a show! Three, to make ready! And four to GO."

Upon his final word the "Games in Gardens" began. The two Isidores and Ignatius Aloysius Diamentstein rushed madly round the yard. Patrick tried to urge the others to follow, but Morris had elected the long jump—and the long jump he would perform, all protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Nathan Spiderwitz grasped the clothes pole and vaulted with great accuracy into the left wing of the grand stand. Isaac Belchatosky had secured a dilapidated ball from an abandoned bowling-alley, and he "put the shot" in all directions to his own satisfaction and the audience's terror until run into and overturned by Ignatius Aloysius Diamentstein.

Shrill cries went up from the audience. The two boys arose unhurt, but the feelings of Bertha Binderwitz and Eva Kidansky were not thereby soothed.

"I guess I gets killed off of my mamma," wailed Bertha when she saw that one whole side of Isaac Belchatosky was smeared with mud. And when Nathan Spiderwitz was reclaimed from the soap boxes, with a long piece of cambric ruffle trailing behind him, Sadie Gonorowsky fell into such an agony of apprehension that Miss Bailey felt called upon for a promise to repair the damage ere another sun should set. Meantime Patrick was not idle. Disdaining competition, he went through all the "events," one after another until the perspiration was thick upon his forehead, and Eva Gonorowsky was trembling with excitement.

"My mamma don't know," she informed Miss Bailey over and over again. But owing perhaps to her watchful care, perhaps to a natural aptitude for athletics, Patrick escaped unspotted and unscathed.

He turned hand-springs upon the heap of clothes. He stood upon his head upon the same rostrum until his eyes bulged, and Miss Bailey implored him to desist. He wrested the shot from Isidore Wishnewsky, a person of no spirit, and then he "put" it neatly into the waist line of its owner, who promptly sat back gasping.

"Don't you dast to set, Isidore Wishnewsky," shrilled Sarah Schodsky in a panic. "I guess you dunno what is polite for you. Sooner somebody lends you somethings it ain't polite you should set on it! Ain't it fierce how he makes, Missis Bailey?"

"It is a little rude," Miss Bailey admitted in a voice as unsteady as Isidore Wishnewsky.

"I never in my world seen how they all makes," said Yetta Aaronsohn, that authority on Hygiene and the Care of the Body. "They could to make themselves awful sicknesses over it—home sicknesses, even, und lay-on-the-bed sicknesses, und comes-the-doctor sicknesses."

"Oh, I hope not!" Teacher rallied the pessimistic Yetta, "though they certainly do seem to be getting very tired."

By this time the track team of the First Reader Class had exhausted itself and its repertoire, and came forward, hot but confident, for its laurels. There was something for each one, and for each a little word of special commendation. And if Teacher's voice was more tender, her eyes more gentle when Morris's turn came, she still was gentle and tender enough with all of them.