Little Citizens | Page 3

she is a bad girl--I tell Sadie--Sadie
is a good girl--I tell her she should make nothings with Eva soch a bad
girl. For what you not put her back by baby class? She is not shmardt."
"Oh, but she is; she is a bright little thing," cried Teacher. "I couldn't

think of putting her back. She's a dear little girl and I can't imagine why
Sadie quarrels with her."
Mrs. Gonorowsky drew her ample form to a wonderful erectness,
readjusted her shawl, and answered with much stateliness:
"It was a trouble from off of real estate." With dignity and blandness
she proceeded to kiss Teacher's hand, and signified entire willingness
to entrust her precious Sadie to the care of so estimable a young person,
inquired solicitously if the work were not too much for so small a lady,
and cautioned the young person against rainy mornings. Had she a
mackintosh? Mr. Gonorowsky was selling them off that week. Were
her imperceptibles sufficiently warm? Mr. Gonorowsky, by a strange
chance, was absolutely giving away "fine all from wool"
imperceptibles, and the store was near. Mrs. Gonorowsky then
withdrew, leaving a kindly sentiment in Teacher's heart and an
atmosphere of ironing-boards and onions in the hall. On the following
morning Sadie returned to her "light-faced" teacher, and for one whole
day hostilities were suspended.
But on the morning after this truce Eva was absent from her
accustomed place and Sadie blandly disclaimed all knowledge of her
whereabouts. After the noon recess a pathetic little figure wavered in
the doorway with one arm in a sling and one eye in a poultice. The
remaining eye was fixed in deep reproach on the face of Isidore
Belchatosky, the Adonis of the class, and the eye was the eye of Eva.
"Eva!" exclaimed Teacher, "oh, Eva, what can you have been doing?
What's the matter with your eye?"
"Isidore Belchatosky he goes und makes me this here shiner," said
Eva's accusing voice, as the eye under the poultice was uncovered for a
moment. It was indeed a "shiner" of aggravated aspect, and Isidore
cringed as it met his affrighted gaze. The sling and the bandages were
of gay chintz, showing forth the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and
their lurid colours made them horribly conspicuous. Friday scampered
across Eva's forehead, pursued by savages; and Crusoe, under his
enormous umbrella, nestled close to her heart.

"Surely Isidore would never hit a little girl?" Teacher remonstrated.
"Teacher, yiss ma'an; he makes me this here shiner. Sadie she goes und
tells him she kisses him a kiss so he makes me a shiner. He's lovin' mit
her und she's got kind feelin's by him, the while his papa's got a candy
cart. It's a stylish candy cart mit a bell und a horn. So-o-oh I was
yesterday on the store for buy my mamma some wurst, und I don't
make nothings mit nobody."
Here the poor, half-blind Eva, with her love and talent for pantomime,
took a gay little walk past Teacher's desk, with tossing head and
swinging skirts. Then with a cry she recoiled from the very memory of
her wrongs.
"Come Isidore! Und he hits me a hack on my leg so I couldn't to hold it
even. So I falls und I make me this here shiner. Und when my mamma
seen how comes such a bile on my bone she had a mad; she hollered
somethin' fierce."
One could well sympathize with the harassed Mrs. Nathan
Gonorowsky.
"So-o-oh," continued Eva with melancholy enjoyment, "my mamma
she puts medsin at a rag und bangages up mine eye. Und now I ain't
healthy."
"Sadie Gonorowsky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, in a voice
which lifted Sadie bodily from the place to which she had guiltily
determined to cling. And Sadie went, jaunty of air, but with shifting
eyes.
"Isidore Belchatosky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, and
Isidore slunk after his divinity.
Teacher was savagely angry, but bylaws forbade corporal punishment,
and principles--and the Principal--forbade noisy upbraidings. And so
with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty,
she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when

addressing ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity.
"Sadie and Isidore, did you dare to interfere with the life, the liberty
and the happiness of our cherished young friend, Eva Gonorowsky?
Did you dare?"
"No ma'an," said Sadie with a sob.
"It's a lie!" said Isidore with a snuffle.
"Did you, Isidore, allow yourself to be tempted by beauty to such
inconceivable depravity as to blacken Eva's eye?"
"No ma'an. Self done it."
"Did you, Sadie, descend so low as to barter kisses with Isidore
Belchatosky?"
"No ma'an," this with much scorn. "I wouldn't to kiss him; he's a
scare-cat, und he tells out."
"What did he tell?" asked