It was a quarter past nine and Miss Bailey was calling the roll, an undertaking which, after months of daily practice, was still formidable. Beginning with Abraham Abrahamowsky and continuing through the alphabet to Solomon Zaracheck, the roll-call of the First-Reader Class was full of stumbling blocks and pitfalls. Teacher insisted upon absolute silence during the five minutes thus consumed, and so it chanced that the excitement of Miss Blake, bursting into Room 18 at this particular time, was thrown into strong relief against the prevailing peace.
"Miss Bailey," began the ruffled sovereign of the room across the hall, "did the Principal speak to you about one of my boys being put back into your grade?"
"Oh, yes; some weeks ago."
"Well, he has been absent ever since, but he turned up this morning. Are you ready to take him now?"
"But of course—How old is he?"
"Nearly seven. Too old for your grade and too advanced, but the Principal wants you to have him because my boys laugh at him. His mother is dead, his sisters in an orphan asylum, and we thought that your little girls might have a civilizing influence over him."
"Perhaps they may," Teacher cheerfully acquiesced. "Eva Gonorowsky alone would civilize a whole tribe of savages. Will you bring him to me?"
The door of Room 17 was not quite closed, and from behind it came sounds of talking and of laughter. Miss Blake threw a few words upon the turmoil, and silence immediately ensued. Then said she: "Isidore Diamantstein, come here," and the only result was a slight titter.
"Abie Fishhandler," she next commanded, "bring Diamantstein to Miss Bailey's room."
The tittering increased and to it were added a scuffle and a sleepily fretful "Lemme be." A heavy footstep crossed the hall and the stalwart Abie Fishhandler stalked into Room 18, bearing the new boy in his arms. From his dusty unlaced shoes to his jungle of gleaming red hair, Isidore Diamantstein was inert, dirty, and bedraggled.
"Oh, let him stand!" cried Miss Blake sharply. "Here, Diamantstein, what's the matter with you? This is Miss Bailey, your new teacher."
"How do you do, Isidore?" said Miss Bailey, as she stooped and took his hand. Then she added quickly to Miss Blake: "He seems feverish. Is he ill?" "Perhaps he is," the other answered. "I never saw him so queer as he is this morning. You'd better let the doctor see him when he comes."
But long before the eleven o'clock visit of the physician of the Board of Health, the illness of Isidore had reached its crisis. When Miss Bailey had established him in his new place he had seen nothing of his surroundings and had been quite deaf to the greetings, whether shy or jeering, with which the First-Reader Class had welcomed him. Left to his own devices, he had promptly laid his arms upon his desk and his head upon his arms. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Isidore's brilliant head still rested on his folded arms and Teacher felt that she must make some effort to comfort his wordless misery.
"Isidore," she began, bending over him, "you won't have to stay here very long. You may go back to Miss Blake in a few days if you are good. So now, dear boy, cheer up!" But as she patted the shoulder nearest to her a long sigh quivered through the little body.
"Now, don't do that," Miss Bailey urged. "Isidore, sit up nicely and let me look at you," and, slipping her hand beneath the chin, she turned the face up to hers. She was prepared for tear-drenched eyes and trembling lips but she found neither. Isidore's dark-lashed lids drooped heavily over his unseeing eyes, his head rolled loosely from side to side, and he began to slip, silently and unconsciously to the floor.
Teacher, in wild alarm, bore him to an open window and sent Patrick Brennan in flying search of the Principal. A great revulsion shook her whenever she looked at the blank little face, but she never guessed the truth. Patrick's quest was short and the Principal's first glance sufficient.
"Send for the janitor," he commanded, and then, "Miss Bailey, may I speak to you in the hall?"
Teacher invested Morris Mogilewsky in the chair and the position of authority, sent Patrick for the janitor, and, strangely shaken, followed the Principal.
"What is it?" she asked, miserably, when the door was closed. "What is the matter with that baby?"
"Well," said the Principal kindly, "if you were more experienced you would be less shocked than I fear you are going to be. The child is simply and most abominably drunk."
"Drunk!" gasped Miss Bailey. "Drunk! and not seven years old!"
"Drunk," echoed the Principal. "Poor little chap! Did Miss Blake tell you the history?—The mother dead, the father away all day, no woman's care. Of course, the end will be the reformatory, but I wonder if we can do anything before that end is reached?"
"Oh, it can't be quite hopeless!" cried Miss Bailey. "Please give him to me. But I want to see that father."
"So you shall," the Principal assured her. "I shall send for him to-morrow to explain this. But he will be entirely at sea. I have him here every two or three weeks about one or other of his children—there are two boys in the upper grades—and the poor devil never can explain. However, I shall let you know when he is here."
The morrow proved the Principal's surmise to have been correct. Mr. Lazarus Diamantstein stood in helpless and hopeless misery before a court of inquiry comprising the Principal, Miss Bailey, the physician of the Board of Health, a representative of the Gerry Society, the truant officer, the indignant janitor, and a policeman who had come to the school in reference to the florid language of his own small son, and, for scenic effect, was pressed into service. Mr. Diamantstein turned from one to another of these stern-faced officials and to each in turn he made his unaltered plea:
"Mine leetle Izzie was a goot leetle boy. He don't never make like you says. Ach! never, never!"
Again, for effect, scenic or moral, the Principal indicated one of the hostile figures of the court. "This gentleman," said he, "belongs to a society which will take charge of your son. Have you ever, Mr. Diamantstein, heard of the Gerry Society?"
Poor Mr. Diamantstein cowered. In all the terrifying world in which he groped so darkly, the two forces against which he had been most often warned were the Board of Health, which might at any time and without notice wash out one's house and confiscate one's provisions; and the Gerry Society, which washed one's children with soap made from the grease of pigs, and fed them with all sorts of "traef" and unblessed meat.
"Ach, no!" he implored. "Gott, no! You should not take and make so mit mine' leetle boy. He ain't a bad boy. He sure ain't."
"Really, I don't think he is," Miss Bailey's cool and quiet voice interposed, and in a moment the harassed father was at her side pleading, extenuating, fawning.
"That young lady," said the Principal, "is your only hope. If Miss Bailey—" Mr. Diamantstein interpreted this as an introduction and bowed most wonderfully—"If Miss Bailey will keep Isidore in her class he may stay in the school. If not, this gentleman—By the way, Miss Bailey, is he at school to-day?"
"Oh, yes, and behaving beautifully. Perhaps his father would care to see him. Will you come with me, Mr. Diamantstein?"
Yearnings to see the cause of all this trouble and sorrow were not very strong in the paternal bosom, but Mr. Diamantstein welcomed the opportunity to escape from officialdom and inquiry.
As she led the way to Room 18, Teacher was again impressed by the furtive helplessness of the man. Living in a land whose language was well-nigh unintelligible to him, ruled and judged by laws whose existence he could learn only by breaking them, driven out of one country, unwelcomed in another, Mr. Diamantstein was indeed a wanderer and an outcast. Some note of sympathy found its way into Miss Bailey's efforts at conversation, and Mr. Diamantstein's quick ear detected it. The vision of Isidore in his new surroundings, the pictures and flowers, the swinging canary and the plaster casts, impressed him mightily, while Miss Bailey's evident and sincere interest in his efforts to do what he could for his boys took him entirely by surprise. He admonished Isidore to superhuman efforts towards the reformation which might keep him in this beautiful room and under the care of its lady, and, as he was about to return to his neglected sewing machine, he gave Miss Bailey all he had to give:
"Say, Teacher," said he, with a wistful glance at his frail little son; "say, you want to lick Issie? Well, you can."
"Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Diamantstein" returned Miss Bailey, while Isidore, thus bestowed, wept aloud, and required instant soothing. "That's very good of you, but I hope it won't be necessary."
"Well," said the father generously, "so you want lick, so you can lick." And so departed.
Miss Bailey's new responsibility continued to behave beautifully. He was peacefully disposed towards the other boys, who feared and venerated him as a member of the "Clinton Street gang." He fell promptly captive to the dark and gentle charms of Eva Gonorowsky and to the calm dominion of Teacher. To the latter he showed a loving confidence which she met with a broad-minded tolerance, very wonderful to his eyes in a person of authority. She seemed really to understand the sweet reasonableness of the reminiscences with which he entertained her. And if she sometimes deplored the necessity of so much lying, stealing, fighting and late hours, well so, of late, did he. She asked him quite calmly one day what he had had for breakfast on the morning of his first day in Room 18, and how he had chanced to be so drunk, and he, with true economy, answered two questions with one word:
"Beer."
"And where," asked Teacher, still carefully unimpressed "did you get it? From your father?"
"Naw," said Isidore, whose manners were yet unformed "He don't never get no beer. He ain't got a can even."
"Then where?"
"To the s'loon—"
"And which saloon?" Miss Bailey's quiet eyes betrayed no trace of her determination that the proprietor should suffer the full penalty of the law. "I thought little boys were not allowed into saloons."
"Well," Isidore admitted, "I ain't gone in the s'loon. I tells the lady on our floor that my papa likes that she should lend her can und she says, 'He's welcome, all right.' Und I gives the can on a man what stands by the s'loon, und I says: 'My papa he has a sickness, und beer is healthy for him. On'y he couldn't to come for buy none. You could to take a drink for yourself.' Und the man says, 'Sure.' Und he gets the beer und takes the drink—a awful big drink—und I sets by the curb und drinks what is in the can. It's awful nice for me."
Miss Bailey's hope for any real or lasting moral change in Isidore was sadly shaken by this revelation. Six and a half years old and deliberately plotting and really enjoying a drunken debauch! Surely, the reformatory seemed inevitable. Suddenly she became conscious that the chain of circumstance in Isidore's recital was not complete.
"But the money," she asked; "where did you get that?"
Isidore's eyes were wells of candour as he answered: "Off a lady."
"And why did she give it to you?"
"'Cause I tells her my mamma lays on the hospital und I like I should buy her a orange on'y I ain't got no money for buy none."
"Oh, Isidore!" cried Teacher, in a voice in which horror, pity, reproach, and wonder mingled. "And you have no mother!" And Isidore's answer was his professional whine, most heartrending and insincere.
Gradually and carefully Teacher became slightly censorious and mildly didactic, and slowly Isidore Diamantstein came to forsake the paths of evil and to spend long afternoons in the serene and admiring companionship of Morris Mogilewsky, Patrick Brennan and Nathan Spiderwitz. But when, early in December, he found a stranded comic valentine and presented it, blushingly, to Eva Gonorowsky, Miss Bailey found that success was indeed most sweet.
Mr. Diamantstein's visits to the school, directed with patient futility to the propitiation of the teachers of his older sons, always ended in a cheering little talk with the young ruler of Room 18. To her he confided his history, his difficulties, and his hopes. In return she gave him advice, encouragement, and, in moments of too pressing need, assistance. The need of this kind was, however, rare, for Mr. Diamantstein was an expert in one of the most difficult branches of the tailor's art, and his salary better than that of many of his fellows.
Shortly after the incident of the valentine Mr. Diamantstein came to Room 18 in radiant array. His frock coat was new and of a wondrous fashion, his tan shoes were of superlative length and sharpness of toe, both his coat and vest were open to the lowest button and turned back to give due prominence to the bright blue shirt beneath. His hair shone in luxurious and oiled profusion, and in the collarless band of his shirt, a chaste diamond stud, not much larger than a butter-plate, flashed and shimmered through his curled black beard. It was luncheon time, and Teacher was at liberty.
"Say, Missis Pailey," he began, "what you think? I'm a loafer."
"Did you give up your position?" asked Miss Bailey, "or did you lose it? You can easily get another, I hope."
"You not understand," cried the guest eagerly. "I was one great big loafer," and he laid outstretched hands upon the blue bosom of his gala shirt; "one great big loafer man."
"No, I'm afraid I don't understand," confessed Miss Bailey. "Tell me about it."
"Vell, I was a vidder man," Mr. Diamantstein explained. "Mine vife she die. From long she die, und I'm a vidder man. But now I marry, maybe, again. I ain't no more a vidder man. I was a loafer on a beautiful yonge lady."
"Oh! you're a lover, Mr. Diamantstein. Why, that's the best news I've heard for ages! And your new wife will take care of the boys. I am so glad!"
"She's a beautiful yonge lady," the Lothario continued; "but easy scared! Oh, awful easy scared! So I don't tell her nothings over those devil boys."
"Now, Mr. Diamantstein—" Teacher began admonishingly, but he interrupted.
"I tells her like this: 'Say, ain't it nice? I got three leetle poys—awful nice leetle poys—no one ain't never seen no better leetle poys.' Und she says she won't marry mit me. Ain't I tell you how she's easy scared? But I tells her all times how my leetle poys is goot, how they makes for her the work, und the dinner, und the beds. Und now she says she will marry mit me und I'm a loafer on a beautiful yonge uptown lady."
The wild gesticulations of Mr. Diamantstein during this account of his courtship and of its triumphant conclusion were wonderful to see. He stopped now, glowing and panting, and Teacher noticed, for the first time, that he was still a young man, and that there was some shadow of excuse for the reckless course of the "beautiful yonge uptown lady."
"Mr. Diamantstein," she said heartily, "I wish you joy. I'm sure you deserve it, and I hope the young lady will be as good as she is beautiful. Bring her to see me some day, won't you?"
"Sure," said Mr. Diamantstein politely.
But ah, for the plans of mice and men! and oh, for the slip and the lip! Within that very week the airy castle of Mr. Diamantstein's hopes was shaken to its foundations. The cause was, of course, "them devil poys." Julius and Nathan Diamantstein were convicted of having stolen and offered for sale books, pencils, and paper, the property of the Board of Education. Isidore had acted as agent and was condemned as an accomplice. The father was sent for and the trio were expelled.
Then deep was the grief of Miss Bailey, and wild was the wailing of Mr. Diamantstein. He tore his hair, he clung to the hem of Miss Bailey's garment and he noted incidentally that it was of "all from wool goods," he cast his cherished derby upon the floor and himself upon her protection.
"Say, Missis Pailey," he implored, "you do me the favour? You go on the Brincipal und you say like that: 'I give him five dollars, maybe, so he don't egspell them devil poys.'"
"But he must," Teacher answered sadly. "It is the law. They must be expelled. But oh, Mr. Diamantstein, won't you try to take care of Isidore?"
"Say, Missis Pailey," Mr. Diamantstein recommenced, "you do me the favour? You go on the Brincipal und you say like that: 'I give him five dollars, maybe, so he don't egspell the boys till the month.' It makes mit me then nothings."
"You won't mind at the end of the month?" exclaimed Miss Bailey. "Why not?"
"Well," said the lover tenderly, "it's over that beautiful yonge lady. She's awful easy scared! awful easy! Und sooner she knows them boys is egspell she don't marry no more mit me. On'y by the month she will be married already und nothings makes then nothings. Say, I gives you too, maybe, a nice present so you says like that on the Brincipal."
But Mr. Diamantstein's lavish promises could avail nothing and the boys were doomed. Time passed and Isidore's place in Miss Bailey's kingdom was taken by another American citizen in the making, and the incident seemed closed.
On an afternoon in the first week of February, Miss Bailey, Nathan Spiderwitz, and Morris Mogilewsky were busily putting Room 18 to rights, when a small boy, in an elaborate sailor costume, appeared before them. He was spotlessly clean and the handkerchief in the pocket of his blouse was dazzling in its white abundance. Upon his brow, soap-polished until it shone, there lay two smooth and sticky curves of auburn hair, and on his face there played a smile of happy recognition and repressed pride.
Miss Bailey and her ministers stood at gaze until the new comer, with a glad cry of "Teacher, oh, mine Teacher," threw himself upon the lady, and then surprise gave place to joy.
"Isidore, my dear boy; I'm so glad to see you! And how beautiful you look!" cried Teacher.
"Beautiful and stylish," said Morris generously. "Sinkers on the necks und sleeves is stylish for boys," and he gazed longingly at the neatly embroidered anchors which adorned the sailor suit.
"Oh, yes; suits mit sinkers is awful stylish. They could to cost three dollars. I seen 'em on Grand Street," said Nathan, and Isidore's heart beat high beneath the "sinker" on his breast.
When the first transports of joy over the reunion had abated, Isidore explained his presence and his appearance.
"My mamma," he began proudly, "she sets by the Principal's side und he says, like that, you should come for see my mamma. She's new."
Teacher deftly patted her hair and stock into place, and set out in great interest and excitement to see the "beautiful yonge uptown lady."
"Come, Isidore," she called.
"Mine name ain't Isidore," he announced "Und it ain't Issie neither, but it's awful stylish. I gets it off my new mamma. It's a new name too."
"Dear me," cried Miss Bailey. "What is it, then?"
"I don't know," answered Isidore. "I couldn't to say it even."
"Dear me!" cried Miss Bailey again, and hurried on.
At the door of the Principal's office Teacher halted in puzzled surprise, for the first glance at the glowing face of the new mamma, and the first sound of her pleasant voice, proclaimed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Mrs. Lazarus Diamantstein the second was a buxom daughter of the Island of Saints. The little sailor climbed upon her lap, and the Principal introduced the matron to the maid. Miss Bailey said all that etiquette demanded and that interest prompted and Mrs. Diamantstein blushed prettily.
"Thank you kindly," she answered.
"You're very good, but I knew that before. Larry—me husband, you know—often told me how good you were to the child."
"Ah, but you see," said Teacher, "I was very fond of Isidore."
"That's not his name at all, Miss," said Mrs. Diamantstein decidedly. "That's a haythen name, and so I'm going to have him christened. Tell your name to the lady, allannah."
Thus encouraged, Isidore toyed with a diamond stud, not much larger than a butter-plate, which glittered in the new shirtwaist of his new mamma, and uttered a perfectly unintelligible string of sounds.
"See how well he knows it," said the parent proudly. "He says his name is Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein. Think of him knowing it already and him not christened until next Sunday! I'll have them all christened at once by Father Burke, over at St. Mary's, and I came here to ask you two things. First, knowing the liking you have for the child, I ask you will you be godmother to Ignatius Aloysius?"
Miss Bailey felt unable to cope, all unaided, with these sudden and bewildering changes. Isidore christened and Christianized! Isidore her godchild! She sought inspiration in the Principal, but his shoulders shook with unsympathetic mirth, and his face was turned away. Left to her own puzzled guidance, she answered:
"Really, Mrs. Diamantstein, you are too good. I have been trying to take care of—of—"
"Ignatius Aloysius," murmured the Principal. "Ye gods, and with that face!"
"Of Ignatius," continued Miss Bailey, stifling a wild inclination towards unseemly laughter, "and I should be delighted to be his godmother, but—but—"
"Well, then, that's settled, and thank you Miss. And now the other thing: Will you take Ignatius Aloysius back into your class? Larry told me how them three children wouldn't go to school for the longest time back, before I was married. Gettin' the little place ready for me, he says they were, and stayin' at home to do it. The darlin's! And lately I was too busy with one thing and another to bring them back. But now I've got Denis and Michael, me other two boys, entered over at the Christian Brothers' school. I was goin' to send the little fellow there too, but he cried to come to you. Won't you take him?"
Miss Bailey appealed to the Principal. "Please," said she, "may I have my godson, Ignatius Aloysius, in my class?"
"I shall try to arrange it so."
Mrs. Diamantstein fixed grateful eyes on Teacher. "You're a good young lady," she repeated, with deep conviction. "And if one of them was a girl I'd call him after you. May I make so bold as to ask your name?"
"Constance."
"Well, now, that's grand. That's a beautiful name. Himself has two little girls in the orphans' home and I think I'll get one out and call it that. But, maybe, I won't. But anyway, the first one I get I'll call Constance, after you."
When Mrs. Diamantstein had taken her decorous leave of the Principal, Miss Bailey and she walked to the great front door. As they reached it Mrs. Diamantstein reiterated her gratitude and added: "You'll be there at three o'clock, won't you, Miss? For we're to have a grand time at the party after the christening. Father Burke promised to come home to the little place with us, and Larry is goin' round now askin' his friends. And it's the queer owld friends he has, Miss, the queerest ever I seen, and with the queerest owld talk out of them. But sure, the little man will enjoy himself more if he has some of his own at the party."
"And do you mean to tell me that the man is asking his Jewish friends to a Catholic christening?" remonstrated Miss Bailey, who had seen something of the racial antagonism which was rending all that district.
"Sure, not at all, Miss," answered Mrs. Larry reassuringly. "Do you think I'd tell him what the party was for? What does the poor man know about christenings? and him, God help him, a haythen of a Jew. Make your mind easy, Miss; it'll just be a party to him. No more than that."
"But he—all of them—will see Father Burke," Miss Bailey urged.
"And who could they see that would do them more good?" demanded Mrs. Diamantstein belligerently. "Cock them up then. It's not often they'd be let into the one room with a saint of a man like that. They'll likely be the better of it for all the rest of their poor dark days."
Teacher made one more effort towards fair play. "I think," she persisted, "that you ought to tell your husband what you intend to do. It would be dreadful if, after all your trouble, he should not let you change the boys' religion."
"Let, indeed!" cried the bride warmly. "He can wait to do that until he's asked. I'd be long sorry to have a man like that with no bringing up of his own, as you might say, comin' between me and me duty in the sight of God. 'Let,' is it?" And the broad shoulders of Bridget Diamantstein stiffened while her clear eye flashed. "Well, I'm fond enough of that little man, but I'd break his sewin'-machine and dance on his derby before I'd see him bring up the darlin's for black Protestant Jews like himself."
And across the space of many weeks, Mr. Diamantstein's voice rang again in Teacher's ears: "She's a beautiful yonge uptown lady, but easy scared. Oh, awful easy scared!"
