Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life Part 20

"And did you give her my message about that last week? Did you tell her that she _must_ send you to school before nine o'clock?" Again Yetta nodded, silent and resigned, evidently a creature bound upon the wheel, heart broken but uncomplaining.

"Well, then," began Miss Bailey, struggling to maintain her just resentment, "you can tell her now that I want to see her. Ask her to come to school to-morrow morning."

"Teacher, she couldn't. She ain't got time. Und she don't know where is the school neither."

"That's nonsense. You live only two blocks away. She sees it every time she pa.s.ses the corner."

"She don't never pa.s.s no corner. She don't never come on the street.

My mamma ain't got time. She sews."

"But she can't sew always. She goes out, doesn't she, to do shopping and to see her friends?"

"She ain't got friends. She ain't got time she should have 'em. She sews all times. Sooner I lays me und the babies on the bed by night my mamma sews. Und sooner I stands up in mornings my mamma sews. All, _all_, ALL times she sews."

"And where is your father? Doesn't he help?"

"Teacher, he's on the country. He is pedlar mans. He walk und he walk und he walk mit all things what is stylish in a box. On'y n.o.body wants they should buy somethings from off of my papa. No ma'an, Missis Bailey, that ain't how they makes mit my poor papa. They goes und makes dogs should bite him on the legs. That's how he tells in a letter what he writes on my mamma. Comes no money in the letter und me und my mamma we got it pretty hard. We got three babies."

"I'm going home with you this afternoon," announced Miss Bailey in a voice which suggested neither mads nor clubs nor violence.

After that visit things were a shade more bearable in the home of the absent pedlar, and one-half of Yetta's ambition was achieved. Teacher had a glad! There was a gentleness almost apologetic in her att.i.tude and the hour after which an arrival should be met with a long-proud-mad-look was indefinitely postponed. And, friendly relations being established, Yetta's craving for monitors.h.i.+p grew with the pa.s.sing days.

When she expressed to Teacher her willingness to hold office she was met with unsatisfying but baffling generalities.

"But surely I shall let you be monitor some day. I have monitors for nearly everything under the sun, now, but perhaps I shall think of something for you."

"I likes," faltered Yetta; "I likes I should be monitor off of flowers."

"But Nathan Spiderwitz takes care of the window boxes. He won't let even me touch them. Think what he would do to you."

"Then I likes I should be monitors to set by your place when you goes by the Princ.i.p.al's office."

"But Patrick Brennan always takes care of the children when I am not in the room."

"He marches first by the line too. He's two monitors."

"He truly is," agreed Miss Bailey. "Well, I shall let you try that some day."

It was a most disastrous experiment. The First Reader Cla.s.s, serenely good under the eye of Patrick Brennan, who wore one of the discarded bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of his sire pinned to the breast of his s.h.i.+rt-waist, found nothing to fear or to obey in his supplanter, and Miss Bailey returned to her kingdom to find it in an uproar and her regent in tears.

"I don't likes it. I don't likes it," Yetta wailed. "All the boys shows a fist on me. All the girls makes a snoot on me. All the childrens say cheek on me. I don't likes it. I don't likes it."

"Then you sha'n't do it again," Teacher comforted her. "You needn't be a monitor if you don't wish."

"But I likes I shall be monitors. On'y not that kind from monitors."

"If you can think of something you would enjoy I shall let you try again. But it must be something, dear, that no one is doing for me."

But Yetta could think of nothing until one afternoon when she was sitting at Teacher's desk during a Swedish drill. All about her were Teacher's things. Her large green blotter, her "from gold" inkstand and pens, her books where Fairies lived. Miss Bailey was standing directly in front of the desk and encouraging the First Reader Cla.s.s--by command and example--to strenuous waving of arms and bending of bodies.

"Forward bend!" commanded, and bent, Miss Bailey and her b.u.t.toned-in-back-waist followed the example of less fas.h.i.+onable models, shed its pearl b.u.t.tons in a shower upon the smooth blotter and gave Yetta the inspiration for which she had been waiting. She gathered the b.u.t.tons, extracted numerous pins from posts of trust in her attire, and when Miss Bailey had returned to her chair, gently set about repairing the breach.

"What is it?" asked Miss Bailey. Yetta, her mouth full of pins, exhibited the b.u.t.tons.

"Dear me! All those off!" exclaimed Teacher. "It was good of you to arrange it for me. And now will you watch it? You'll tell me if it should open again?"

Yetta had then disposed the pins to the best advantage and was free to voice her triumphant:

"Oh, I knows _now_ how I wants I should be monitors! Teacher, mine dear Teacher, could I be monitors off of the back of your dress?"

"But surely, you may," laughed Teacher, and Yetta entered straightway into the heaven of fulfilled desire.

None of Eva's descriptions of the joys of monitors.h.i.+p had done justice to the glad reality. After common mortals had gone home at three o'clock, Room 18 was transformed into a land where only monitors and love abounded. And the new monitor was welcomed by the existing staff, for she had supplanted no one, and was so palpitatingly happy that Patrick Brennan forgave her earlier usurpation of his office and Nathan Spiderwitz bestowed upon her the freedom of the window boxes.

"Ever when you likes you should have a crawley bug from off of the flowers; you tell me und I'll catch one fer you. I got lots. I don't need 'em all."

"I likes I shall have one now," ventured Yetta, and Nathan ensnared one and put it in her hand where it "crawlied" most pleasingly until Morris Mogilewsky begged it for his Gold-Fish in their gleaming "fish theaytre." Then Eva shared with her friend and protege the delight of sharpening countless blunted and bitten pencils upon a piece of sand-paper.

"Say," whispered Yetta as they worked busily and dirtily, "Say, I'm monitors now. On'y I ain't got no papers."

"You ask her. She'll give you one."

"I'd have a shamed the while she gives me und my mamma whole bunches of things already. She could to think, maybe, I'm a greedy. But I needs that paper awful much. I needs I shall go on the country for see mine papa."

"No, she don't thinks you is greedy. Ain't you monitors on the back of her waist? You should come up here 'fore the childrens comes for see how her b.u.t.tons stands. You go und tell her you needs that paper."

Very diplomatically Yetta did. "Teacher," she began, "b.u.t.toned-in-back-dresses is stylish fer ladies."

"Yes, honey," Miss Bailey acquiesced, "so I thought when I saw that you wear one."

"On'y they opens," Yetta went on, all flushed by this high tribute to her correctness. "All times they opens, yours und mine, und that makes us shamed feelings."

Again Miss Bailey acquiesced.

"So-o-oh," pursued Yetta, with fast beating heart; "don't you wants you should give me somethings from paper mit writings on it so I could come on your room all times for see how is your b.u.t.toned-in-back-dresses?"

"A beautiful idea," cried Teacher. "We'll take care of one another's b.u.t.tons. I'll write the card for you now. You know what to do with it?"

"Yiss ma'an. Eva tells me all times how I could come where I wants sooner you writes on papers how I is good girls."

"I'll write nicer things than that on yours," said Miss Bailey. "You are one of the best little girls in the world. So useful to your mother and to the babies and to me! Oh yes, I'll write beautiful things on your card, my dear."

When the Grand Street car had borne Miss Bailey away Yetta turned to Eva with determination in her eye and the "paper mit writings" in her hand.

"I'm goin' on the country for see my papa und birds und flowers und all them things what Teacher tells stands in the country. I need I should see them."

"Out your mamma?" Eva remonstrated.

"'Out, 'out my mamma. She ain't got no time for go on no country. I don't needs my mamma should go by my side. Ain't you said I could to go all places what I wants I should go, sooner Teacher gives me papers mit writings?"