Little Citizens

Little Citizens, by Myra Kelly

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Title: Little Citizens
Author: Myra Kelly
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6662] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 10,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LITTLE
CITIZENS ***

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LITTLE CITIZENS
The Humours of School Life
BY MYRA KELLY
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS

TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

A Little Matter of Real Estate
The Uses of Adversity
A Christmas Present for a Lady
Love Among the Blackboards

Morris and the Honourable Tim
When a Man's Widowed
H.R.H. The Prince of Hester Street
The Land Of Heart's Desire
A Passport to Paradise
The Touch of Nature

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Say, Teacher, I got something for you". Frontispiece
Isidore Belchatosky, the Adonis of the class
"I got two swollen legs over her"
"My dear little chap, you mustn't cry like that"
"Dismissed with the common herd at three o'clock"
"I must ask you to leave this room"
"Teacher, I tells you 'scuse"
"So you want lick, so you can lick"
"She's a beautiful yonge uptown lady, but easy scared. Oh, awful easy
scared!"
"Don't you dast to touch me," he yelled
"Look at your back!"

"You'll wish you minded your own ---- business before I get through
with you"
Morris Mogilewsky
"I washes me the face"
"Ain't you never comin' on the school for to see mine teacher?"

A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE

Four weeks of teaching in a lower East Side school had deprived
Constance Bailey of many of the "Ideals in Education" which, during
four years at college, she had trustingly acquired. But, despite many
discouragements, despite an unintelligible dialect and an autocratic
"Course of Study," she clung to an ambition to establish harmony in her
kingdom and to impress a high moral tone upon the fifty-eight little
children of Israel entrusted to her care. She was therefore troubled and
heavy of heart when it was borne in upon her that two of her little
flock--cousins to boot, and girls--had so far forgotten the Golden Rule
as to be "mad on theirselves und wouldn't to talk even," as that Bureau
of Fashionable Intelligence, Sarah Schrodsky, duly reported.
"Und Teacher," Sarah continued, "Eva Gonorowsky's mamma has a
mad on Sadie Gonorowsky's mamma, und her papa has a mad on her
papa, und her gran'ma has a mad on both of papas und both of mammas,
und her gran'pa has a mad somethin' fierce on both of uncles, und her
auntie--"
Here Miss Bailey sent the too communicative Sarah to her place and
called the divided house of Gonorowsky to her desk for instant
judgment. And as she held forth she was delighted to see that her words
were falling upon good ground, for the dark and dainty features of her
hearers expressed a flattering degree of conviction and of humility. She
was admiring the wonderful lashes lying damp and dark on Eva's

smooth cheek when the beautiful eyes unclosed, gazed straight across
the desk at Sadie, and Eva took a flying leap into Teacher's lap to cling
with arms and knees and fingers to her chosen refuge.
"Oh, Teacher, Teacher," she wailed, "Sadie makes on me such a snoot I
got a scare over it."
Miss Bailey turned to the so lately placid face of Sadie in search of the
devastating "snoot," but met only a serene glance of conscious
guilelessness and the assurance:
"No ma'an, I don't makes no snoot on nobody. I get killed as anything
off of my mamma sooner I makes a snoot. It ain't polite." This with a
reassuring smile and direct and candid gaze.
"Teacher, yiss ma'an, she makes all times a snoot on me," cried the