Little Citizens | Page 4

Teacher.
"He tells out how I say I kiss him a kiss so he make Eva a shiner. Und I
wouldn't to do it. Never. So he gave me five cents even, I wouldn't to
kiss no scare-cat."
"Well, then, why did you promise?"
"'Cause I couldn't to hit her mineself," said the doughty Sadie. She was
inches taller than her victim, and stout withal. "I couldn't, 'cause I ain't
so healthy; I'm a nervous child, Teacher, und I was
day-before-yesterday sick on the bed."
Here the plaintive plaintiff showed a desire to testify once more, and
Teacher appointed three-thirty that afternoon as the hour most suitable
for a thorough examination of the case.
When the last arm had been twisted into the last sleeve, when the last

chin had been tied into the last shawl, when the last dispute as to
ownership in disreputable mittens had been settled, the great case of
Gonorowsky vs. Gonorowsky was called. On either side of the desk
stood a diminutive Gonorowsky; Eva still plaintive, and Sadie, redly,
on the defensive. Directly in front stood that labourer defrauded of his
hire, that tool in the hands of guileful woman--Isidore Belchatosky.
"Now," Teacher began, "I want to hear nothing but the truth. Isidore,
did you hit Eva?"
"Yiss ma'an."
"What for?"
"For a kiss."
"From whom?"
Here Sadie muttered a threat "to lay him down dead if he tells," and
Isidore required promise of safe conduct to his own block before he
consented to murmur:
"Sadie Gonorowsky."
"Did you get the kiss?"
"No ma'an."
"Do you know anything about this fight?"
"No ma'an."
"Well, then, you may go home now, and bring your mother with you
to-morrow morning."
Isidore left with a heavy heart and the enquiry was continued.
"What has Sadie been doing to you, Eva?" asked Teacher, and Eva,
with resigned mien, answered:

"All things," and then details followed. "She makes on me a snoot, she
pulls me on the bottom of my hair, she goes und takes her pencil und
gives me a stick in my face. When I was marchin' she extra takes her
shoes und steps at my legs; I got two swollen legs over her. Und
now"--here a sob--"you could to look on how she makes me biles und
shiners."
As Eva's voice droned out these many accusations, Sadie grew more
emphatic in her favourite repartee:
"It's a lie! It's a lie! It's a lie!"
"And now, Eva, will you tell me why Sadie has been doing all these
naughty things?"
"Teacher, I don't know."
"Oh, yes; you do!"
"No ma'an; I don't. I could swear if I do. I kiss up to God." She wafted
a kiss towards the ceiling. "I got all times a kind feelin' over Sadie, on'y
she wouldn't to be glad on me. I seen yesterday her little brother in the
street mit Sadie und she make he shouldn't to talk to me. My heart it
breaks when she make like that; I'm got no brother und no sister und
I'm lovin' so much mit my little cousin. She goes und makes he should
say nothin' und in mine eyes stands tears. I was sad."
[Illustration: ISIDORE BELCHATOSKY, THE ADONIS OF THE
CLASS]
[Illustration: "I GOT TWO SWOLLEN LEGS OVER HER"]
"Well, dear, that's a shame," said Teacher, "and if you really don't
understand, go out into the assembly room and wait for me. Sadie is
going to tell me all about it."
Eva vanished, only to return with the lurid bandage in her hand and the
query:--"Can I make this wet?"

Upon receiving permission so to do she retired with her courteous
"Good-afternoon, Teacher," and her unchanged "Good-by, Sadie; I'm
got yet that kind feelin'." Truly the "pangs of disprized love" seemed
hers.
Several kinds of persuasion were practised in Room 18 during the next
five minutes. Then Sadie accepted defeat, faced the inevitable, and
began:
"It's like this: I dassent to be glad on Eva. So I want even, I dassent. My
mamma has the same mad, und my papa. My mamma she says like this:
So my papa gets sooner glad on my uncle she wouldn't to be wifes mit
him no more! Such is the mad she has!"
"Why?"
"Well. Mine uncle he come out of Russia. From long he come when I
was a little bit of baby. Und he didn't to have no money for buy a house.
So my papa--he's awful kind--he gives him thousen dollers so he could
to buy. Und say, Teacher, what you think? he don't pays it back. It ain't
polite you takes thousen dollers und don't pays it back."
Sadie's air, as she submitted this rule of social etiquette to Teacher's
wider knowledge, was a wondrous thing to see--so deferential was it
and yet so