The Girl and the Kingdom | Page 6

boys and four babies so fat and bow-legged that they probably never had reached, nor ever would reach, a fire while it was still burning.
Pat Higgins, aged five and a half, the leader of the line, had a sudden pang of conscience at the corner and ran back to ask me artlessly if he might "go to the fire."
"Certainly not," I answered firmly. "On the contrary please stay here with the lame and the fat, while I go to the fire and bring back the other children."
I then pursued the errant flock and recovering most of them, marched them back to the school-room, meeting Judge Solomon Heydenfelt, President of the new Kindergarten Association, on the steps. He had been awaiting me for ten minutes and it was his first visit! He had never seen a kindergarten before, either returning from a fire or otherwise, and there was a moment of embarrassment, but I had a sense of humor and fortunately he enjoyed the same blessing. Only very young teachers who await the visits of supervisors in shuddering expectancy can appreciate this episode.
The days grew brighter and more hopeful as winter approached. I got into closer relation with some homes than others, and I soon had half a dozen five-year-olds who came to the kindergarten clean, and if not whole, well darned and patched. One of these could superintend a row of babies at their outline sewing, thread their needles, untangle their everlasting knots, and correct the mistakes in the design by the jabbing of wrong holes in the card. Another was very skillful at weaving and proved a good assistant in that occupation.
I developed also a little body guard which was efficient in making a serener and more harmonious atmosphere. It is neither wise nor kind to burden a child with responsibilities too heavy or irksome for his years, but surely it is never too early to allow him to be helpful to his fellows and considerate of his elders. I can't believe that any of the tiny creatures on whom I leaned in those weary days were the worse for my leaning. The more I depended on them the greater was their dependableness, and the little girls grew more tender, the boys more chivalrous. I had my subtle means of communication, spirit to spirit! If Pat Higgins, pausing on the verge of some regrettable audacity or hilarious piece of mischief, chanced to catch my eye, he desisted. He knew that I was saying to him silently: "You are not so very naughty. I could almost let you go on if it were not for those others who are always making trouble. Somebody must be good! I cannot bear it if you desert me!"
Whenever I said "Pat" or "Aaron" or "Billy" in a pleading tone it meant "Help! or I perish!" and it was so construed. No, I was never left without succor when I was in need of it! I remember so well an afternoon in late October when the world had gone very wrong! There had been a disagreeable argument with Mrs. Gump, who had sent Goldine to mingle with the children when she knew she had chicken pox; Stanislas Strazinski had fallen down stairs and bruised his knee; Mercedes Pulaski had upset a vase of flowers on the piano keys and finally Petronius Nelson had stolen a red woolen ball. I had seen it in his hand and taken it from him sadly and quietly as he was going down the stairs. I suggested a few minutes for repentance in the play-room and when he came out he sat at my knee and sobbed out his grief in pitiful fashion. His tears moved my very heart. "Only four years old," I thought, "and no playthings at home half as attractive as the bright ones we have here, so I must be very gentle with him." I put my arm around him to draw him to me and the gesture brought me in contact with his curiously knobby, little chest. What were my feelings when I extracted from his sailor blouse one orange, one blue, and two green balls! And this after ten minutes of repentant tears! I pointed the moral as quickly as possible so that I might be alone, and then realizing the apparent hopelessness of some of the tasks that confronted me I gave way to a moment of hysterical laughter, followed by such a flood of tears as I had not shed since I was a child. It was then and there the Corporal found me, on her way home from school. She flung her books on the floor and took my head on her kind, scrawny, young shoulder.
"What have they been doin' to you?" she stormed. "You just tell me which one of