Little Citizens | Page 3

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 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