Little Citizens | Page 2

now
weeping Eva, "all times. She turns her nose around, und makes go
away her eyes, und comes her tongue out long. On'y I dassent to fight
mit her while I'm cousins mit her. Und over cousins you got all times
kind feelings."
"Well, Sadie," Teacher questioned, "what have you to say?"
The dark eyes met Teacher's with no shadow in their depths as Sadie
uttered her denial:
"I never in my world done no snoot."
A shudder of admiring awe swept over the assembled class--followed
by a gasp of open contradiction as Sadie went on with her vindication.
For Sadie's snoots were the envy of all the class. Had not Morris
Mogilewsky paid three cents for lessons in the art, and, with the
accomplishment, frightened a baby into what its angry mother
described as "spine-yell convulsions"? And now Sadie was saying, "I
couldn't to make no snoot. Never. But, Teacher, it's like this: Eva
makes me whole bunches of trouble. Bertha Binderwitz und me is
monitors in the yard when the childrens comes back from dinner.
So-o-oh, I says, 'front dress,' like you says, so the childrens shall look

on what head is in front of them. On'y Eva she don't 'front dress' at all,
but extra she longs out her neck und rubs on me somethin' fierce--"
"It's a lie!" interrupted Eva gently. "I don't make nothing like that. I
stands by my line und Sadie she makes faces on me with her hand. It
ain't polite." This with plaintive self-righteousness. "No ma'an, it ain't
polite--you makes snoots mit your hand like this." And as Eva
illustrated with outspread fingers and a pink thumb in juxtaposition to a
diminutive nose, Teacher, with uncertain gravity, was forced to admit
that snoots of that description are sanctioned by few books of etiquette.
"Now, my dear little girls," said she, "this quarrelling must stop. I want
you to kiss each other as cousins should."
This suggestion was a distinct failure. Eva and Sadie, with much
fluttering of aprons and waving of curls, sought opposite corners of the
schoolroom, while up started Sarah Schrodsky with: "Teacher, they
couldn't to make no kissing. They're mad on theirselves 'cause their
mammas has a mad. Sadie's mamma says like this on Eva's mamma,
'Don't you dast to talk to me--you lives by the fifth floor und your man
is a robber.' Und Eva's mamma says--"
When Teacher had managed to silence Sarah she led the weeping
Gonorowskys back to their places and the scholastic world wagged on
in outward tranquillity.
Hostilities were temporarily suspended some days later owing to the
illness of Sadie, by far the more aggressive of the opposing parties. Eva
led a placid life for three peaceful days, and then--as by law prescribed
and postal card invited--Sadie's mother came to explain her daughter's
absence. Large of person, bland of manner, in a heavy black shawl and
a heavier black wig, Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky stood beaming and
bobbing in the hall.
"I likes I should Sadie Gonorowsky's teacher see," she began, in the
peculiar English of the adult population of the East Side. Mrs.
Gonorowsky could neither use nor understand her young daughter's
copious invective. Upon being assured that the diminutive form before

her was indeed clothed with authority, she announced:
"Comes a letter I should by the school come. I was Sadie's mamma."
Here she drew from the inner recesses of the black shawl a bundle
which, being placed in a perpendicular position, proved to be the most
recent addition to the Gonorowsky household. She smoothed it with a
work-worn but tender hand, and repeated in a saddened voice: "Yes,
ma'am, I was her mamma und she lays now on the bed."
The increasing sadness of Mrs. Gonorowsky's announcement and its
sinister phraseology startled Teacher. "Not dead!" she cried. "Oh,
surely not dead!"
"Sure not," was the indignant response. "She's got such a sickness she
must lay on the bed, und comes the doctor. Sadie's papa holds much on
that child, Miss Teacher, und all times he has a worry over her. Me too.
She comes by the school tomorrow maybe, und I ask you by a favour
you should do me the kindness to look on her. So she feel again sick
she should better on the house come. She say, 'Oh, mamma, I got a
lovely teacher; I likes to look on her the while she has such a light
face.'"
Having thus diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with
great suavity asked, "Sadie is a good girl, hein?"
"Oh, yes, indeed."
"She is shmardt, hein? She don't make you no troubles?"
"Well," Miss Bailey answered, "she has rather bothered me lately by
quarrelling with her little cousin, Eva."
"So-o-oh!" exclaimed Sadie's parent ponderously. "So-o-oh, Eva
Gonorowsky makes you troubles;