Immigrant children -- Fiction; Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Teachers -- Fiction
"I guess I gets killed off of my mamma," wailed Bertha when she saw that
one whole side of Isaac Belchatosky was smeared with mud. And when
Nathan Spiderwitz was reclaimed from the soap boxes, with a long piece
of cambric ruffle trailing behind him, Sadie Gonorowsky fell into such
an agony of apprehension that Miss Bailey felt called upon for a promise
to repair the damage ere another sun should set. Meantime Patrick was
not idle. Disdaining competition, he went through all the "events," one
after another until the perspiration was thick upon his forehead, and
Eva Gonorowsky was trembling with excitement.
"My mamma don't know," she informed Miss Bailey over and over again. But
owing perhaps to her watchful care, perhaps to a natural aptitude for
athletics, Patrick escaped unspotted and unscathed.
He turned hand-springs upon the heap of clothes. He stood upon his head
upon the same rostrum until his eyes bulged, and Miss Bailey implored
him to desist. He wrested the shot from Isidore Wishnewsky, a person of
no spirit, and then he "put" it neatly into the waist line of its owner,
who promptly sat back gasping.
"Don't you dast to set, Isidore Wishnewsky," shrilled Sarah Schodsky in
a panic. "I guess you dunno what is polite for you. Sooner somebody
lends you somethings it ain't polite you should set on it! Ain't it
fierce how he makes, Missis Bailey?"
"It is a little rude," Miss Bailey admitted in a voice as unsteady as
Isidore Wishnewsky.
"I never in my world seen how they all makes," said Yetta Aaronsohn,
that authority on Hygiene and the Care of the Body. "They could to make
themselves awful sicknesses over it--home sicknesses, even, und
lay-on-the-bed sicknesses, und comes-the-doctor sicknesses."
"Oh, I hope not!" Teacher rallied the pessimistic Yetta, "though they
certainly do seem to be getting very tired."
By this time the track team of the First Reader Class had exhausted
itself and its repertoire, and came forward, hot but confident, for its
laurels. There was something for each one, and for each a little word
of special commendation. And if Teacher's voice was more tender, her
eyes more gentle when Morris's turn came, she still was gentle and
tender enough with all of them.
At the end she made a short address to victors and audience alike. She
thanked them for their great effort to give her pleasure, and for the
great pleasure they had given her, and then added:
"When I brought your prizes this morning I had no idea what the party
was to be like, and so of course I didn't get just what I would have
given you if I had known. But now that I do know how wonderfully our
boys can jump and run, I shall bring for each boy on Monday morning a
regular running suit, and whenever you have 'Games in Gardens' again you
won't have to borrow anything. Perhaps the Principal would like you to
have 'Games in Gardens' on the roof some afternoon, and you could
invite the other classes. I am sure they'd love it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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