Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life Part 15

"One more bad word," was Teacher's ultimatum; "one more and then I'll do it."

Miss Bailey's commands were not lightly disregarded, and Patrick Brennan spent the ensuing week in vain endeavour to reconcile himself to a condition of things in which he, the first born of the policeman on the beat, and therefore by right of heredity a person of importance in the realm, should tamely submit to usurpation and insult on the part of this mushroom sprig of moneyed aristocracy, this sissy kid in velvet pants, this long-haired dummy of an Isaac Borrachsohn. Teacher could not have meant to cut him off from all hope of vengeance. If she had--then she must be shown that the honour of the house of Brennan was a thing beyond even her jurisdiction. A Brennan had been insulted in his person and in his property. Of course, he must have satisfaction.

If Morris could have known that Patrick, of whom he was so fond, was plotting evil against the heir-apparent to the throne of Hester Street, he might have persuaded that scion of the royal house of Munster to stay his hand. But the advice of Patrick pere had always been: "Lay low until you see a good chanst, an' then sock it to 'em good and plenty." So Patrick fils bided his time and continued to "make the mission" with his pious mother.

After his initial speech in his English, so like Miss Bailey's, Isaac Borrachsohn resumed his cloak of silence and spoke no more of the language of the land. Even in his own tongue he was far from garrulous.

And yet his prestige continued to increase, his costumes grew ever more gorgeous, and his slaves--both male and female--daily more numerous. In reading and in "Memory Gems" his progress was, under the veil of speechlessness, imperceptible, but in writing and in all the prescribed branches of Manual Training he acquired a proficiency which made it impossible to return him to his royal sire. Gradually it was borne in upon Miss Bailey that she had met her Waterloo--a child who would have none of her. All her attempts at friendliness were met by the same stolid silence, the same impersonal regard, until in desperation, she essayed a small store of German phrases, relics of her soph.o.m.ore days. Six faulty sentences, with only the most remote bearing upon the subject in hand, were more efficacious than volumes of applied psychology, and the reserve of Isaac Borrachsohn vanished before the rising conviction that Teacher belonged to his own race.

How otherwise, he demanded, could she speak such beautiful Hebrew?

When Morris translated this tribute to Patrick, a flame of anger and of hope lit up that Celtic soul. Such an accusation brought against Miss Bailey, whom he had heard his n.o.ble father describe as "one of ourselves, G.o.d bless her!" was bitter to hear, but the Knight of Munster comforted himself with the conviction that Teacher would no longer s.h.i.+eld the sissy from the retribution he now had doubly earned. But it should be a retribution fitted to the offender and in proportion to the offence. Long experience of Jewish playfellows had taught Patrick a revenge more fiendish than a beating, a ducking, a persecution by "de gang," or a confiscation of goods and treasures. All of these were possible and hard to bear, but for Isaac's case something worse was needed. He should be branded with a cross! Fortune, after weeks of frowning, was with Patrick on that warm April afternoon. Isaac was attired in a white linen costume so short of stocking and of knickerbockers as to exhibit surprising area of fat leg, so fas.h.i.+onable in its tout ensemble as to cause Isidore Belchatosky to weep aloud, so spotless as to prompt Miss Bailey to s.h.i.+eld it with her own "from silk" ap.r.o.n when the painting lesson commenced. Patrick Brennan had obeyed his father's injunction to "lay low" so carefully that Teacher granted a smiling a.s.sent to his plea to be allowed to occupy the place, which chanced to be empty, immediately behind Isaac's.

On each little desk Miss Bailey, a.s.sisted by her whole corps of monitors, placed a sheet of drawing paper, a little pan containing India ink dissolved in water, and a fat j.a.panese paint brush. The cla.s.s was delighted, for, with the possible exception of singing, there was no more popular occupation. Briskly the First Reader Cla.s.s fell to work. Carefully they dipped brushes in ink. Bravely they commenced to draw. Teacher pa.s.sed from desk to desk encouraging the timid, restraining the rash.

Patrick dug his brush deep down into his ink, lifted it all wet and dripping, cast a furtive glance at Teacher's averted head, and set stealthily to work at the bent and defenceless back of Isaac Borrachsohn's spotless suit. From shoulder to shoulder he drew a thick black mark. Then another from straight cropped hair to patent leather belt. Mrs. Borrachsohn belonged to the school of mothers who believed in winter underwear until the first of June, and Isaac felt nothing.

But Eva Gonorowsky saw and shuddered, hiding her eyes from the symbol and the desecration. Patrick glowered at her, filled his brush again, bent quickly down, and branded the bare and mottled legs of his enemy with two neatly crossed strokes.

In an instant the room was in an uproar. Patrick, his face and hands daubed with ink, was executing a triumphant war-dance around Isaac, who, livid and inarticulate with rage, was alternately struggling for words and making wondrous Delsartean attempts to see his outraged back.

"I socked it to you good and plenty!" chanted Patrick in shrill victory.

"Look at your back! Look at your leg! It's ink! It won't come off! It will never come off! Look at your back!"

Miss Bailey clanged the bell, caught Patrick by the waist-line, thrust him under her desk, fenced him in with a chair, and turned to Isaac who had only just realized the full horror of his plight. Isidore Belchatosky and Eva Gonorowsky had torn off the white tunic--thereby disclosing quant.i.ties of red flannel--and exhibited its desecrated back. And speech, English speech returned to the Prince of Hester Street. Haltingly at first, but with growing fluency he cursed and swore and blasphemed; using words of whose existence Teacher had never heard or known and at whose meaning she could but faintly guess. Eva began to whimper; Nathan lifted shocked eyes to Teacher; Patrick kicked away the barricading chair and, still armed with the inky brush, sprang into the arena, and it was not until five minutes later that gentle peace settled down on Room 18.

Miss Bailey had received full parental authority from the policeman on the beat and she felt that the time for its exercise had come.

"Patrick," she commanded. "Position!" And the Leader of the Line stood forth stripped of his rank and his followers, but not of his dauntless bearing.

Teacher, with a heavy heart, selected the longest and lightest of her rulers and the review continued.

"Hips firm!" was the next command, and Patrick's grimy hands sprang to his hips.

"Trunk forward--bend!" Patrick doubled like a jack-knife and Miss Bailey did her duty.

When it was over she was more distressed than was her victim. "Patrick, I'm so sorry this happened," said she. "But you remember that I warned you that I should whip you if you touched Isaac. Well, you did and I did. You know--all the children know--that I always keep my word."

"Yiss ma'an," murmured the frightened First Reader Cla.s.s.

"Always?" asked Patrick.

"Always," said Miss Bailey.

"Then wash out his mouth," said Patrick, pointing to the gloating Isaac, who promptly ceased from gloating.

"Oh, that reminds me," cried Teacher, "of something I want you to do.

Will you tell Isaac you are sorry for spoiling his new suit?"

"Sure," answered Patrick readily. "Say, Isaac, I'm sorry. Come and git your mouth washed."

"Well," Miss Bailey temporized, "his clothes are ruined. Don't you think you could forgive him without the was.h.i.+ng?"

"Sure," answered Patrick again. "Ain't it too bad that you can't, too!

But you said it and now you've got to do it. Like you did about me, you know. Where's the basin? I'll fill it."

Teacher was fairly trapped, but, remembering that Isaac's provocation had been great, she determined to make the ordeal as bearable as possible. She sent for some water, selected a piece of appetizing rose pink soap, a relic of her Christmas store, and called Isaac, who, when he guessed the portent of all these preliminaries, suffered a shocking relapse into English. Nerved by this latest exhibition, Miss Bailey was deaf to the wails of Isaac and unyielding to the prayers and warnings of Morris and to the frantic sympathy of Eva Gonorowsky.

"Soap ain't fer us," Morris cried. "It ain't fer us. We don't ever make like you makes mit soap!"

"I noticed that," said Teacher dryly. "I really think you are afraid of soap and water. When I finish with Isaac you will all see how good it is for boys and girls to be washed."

"But not in the mouth! Oh, Missis Bailey, soap in the mouth ain't fer us."

"Nonsense, honey," answered Teacher; "it will only clean his teeth and help him to remember not to say nasty words." And, all unaware of the laws of "kosher" and of "traef," the distinctions between clean and unclean, quite as rigorous as, and much more complicated than, her own, Constance Bailey washed out the mouth of her royal charge, and, it being then three o'clock, dismissed her awed subjects and went serenely home.

On his progress towards the palace of his sire, Isaac Borrachsohn, with Christian symbols printed large upon his person, alienated nine loyal Hebrew votes from his father's party and collected a following of small boys which nearly blocked the narrow streets. The crosses were bad enough, but when it was made clear that the contamination, in the form of bright pink soap, had penetrated to the innermost recesses of the heir of the Barrachsohns, the aunts, in frozen horror, turned for succour and advice to the Rabbi. But he could only confirm their worst fears. "Soap," said he, "is from the fat of pigs. Our boy is defiled. To-morrow he must be purified at the synagogue. I told you it was a Christian school."

Then did the a.s.semblyman quail before the reproach of his women. Then did he bite his nails in indecision and remorse and swear to be revenged upon the woman who had dared so to pollute his son. Then did Isaac weep continuously, noisily, but ineffectually for, on the morrow, to the synagogue he went.

Miss Bailey, when she saw that he was absent, was mildly self-reproachful and uneasy. If she could have known of the long and complicated rites and services which she had brought upon the boy who had been entrusted to her to be kept happy and out of mischief, she might not have listened so serenely to the janitor's announcement two days later.

"Borrachsohn and a whole push of women, and an old bird with a beard, are waitin' for you in the boys' yard," he whispered with great _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "I sent them there," he explained, "because they wouldn't fit anywhere else. There's about a hundred of them."

Mr. Borrachsohn's opening remark showed that the force of Isaac's speech was hereditary. "Are you the --- --- young woman who's been playing such fool tricks with my son? You'll wish you minded your own --- business before I get through with you."

The belligerent att.i.tude was reflected by the phalanx of female relatives, whose red roses waved in defiance now, as they had nodded in amity a few short weeks before. For an instant Teacher did not grasp the full meaning of Mr. Borrachsohn's greeting. Then suddenly she realized that this man, this trafficker in the blood and the honour of his people, had dared to swear at her, Constance Bailey. When her eyes met those of the a.s.semblyman he started slightly, and placed Isaac between him and this alarming young person who seemed not at all to realize that he could "break her" with a word.

"Is this your child?" she demanded. And he found himself answering meekly:

"Yes ma'an."

"Then take him away," she commanded. "He is not fit to be with decent children. I refuse to teach him."

"You can't refuse," said Mr. Borrachsohn. "It is the law--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU'LL WISH YOU MINDED YOUR OWN --- BUSINESS BEFORE I GET THROUGH WITH YOU"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Morris Mogilewsky]

"Law!" repeated Teacher. "What is the law to you?" She was an open-eyed young person; she had spent some months in Mr. Borrachsohn's district; she had a nasty energy of phrase; and the King of Hester Street has never translated the ensuing remarks to the wife of his bosom nor to the gentle-eyed old Rabbi who watched, greatly puzzled by his ideal of a Christian persecutor and this very different reality. Gradually the relatives saw that the accuser had become the accused, but they were hardly prepared to see him supplicating and even unsuccessfully.

"No, I won't take him. I tell you his language is awful. I can't let the other children hear him."

"But I shall see that he swears no more. We taught him for a joke.

I'll stop him."

"I'm afraid you can't."

"Well, you try him. Try him for two weeks. He is a good boy; he will swear no more."

"Very well," was Teacher's ungracious acquiescence; "I shall try him again. And if he should swear--"