Little Citizens | Page 4

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 assured.
"So my papa he writes a letter on my uncle how he could to pay that thousen dollers. Goes months. Comes no thousen dollers. So my papa he goes on the lawyer und the lawyer he writes on my uncle a letter how he should to pay. Goes months. Comes no thousen dollers." At each repetition of these fateful words Sadie shook her serious head, pursed up her rosy mouth, folded her hands resignedly, and sighed deeply. Clearly this was a tale more than twice told, for the voice and manner of Sadie were as the voice and manner of Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky, and the recital was plagiarism--masterly and complete.
"And then?" prompted Teacher, lest the conversation languish.
"Well, my papa writes some more a letter on mine uncle. Oh-o-oh, a