Little Citizens: The Humours of School LifeKelly, Myra
General
Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life
Kelly, Myra
Short stories; Students -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
It was only a few blocks, and they were soon in the land of their
hearts' desire, where were waving trees and flowering shrubs and
smoothly sloping lawns, and, framed in all these wonders, a beautiful
little water-lake all dotted and brightened by fleets of tiny boats.
The pilgrims from the East Side stood for a moment at gaze and then
bore down upon the jewel, straight over grass and border, which is a
course not lightly to be followed in park precincts and in view of
park policemen. The ensuing reprimand dashed their spirits not at all
and they were soon assembled close to the margin of the lake, where
they got entangled in guiding strings and drew to shore many a craft,
to the disgust of many a small owner. Becky Zalmonowsky stood so closely
over the lake that she shed the chatelaine bag into its shallow depths
and did irreparable damage to her gala costume in her attempts to
"dibble" for her property. It was at last recovered, no wetter than
the toilette it was intended to adorn, and the cousins Gonorowsky had
much difficulty in balking Becky's determination to remove her gown
and dry it then and there.
Then Ignatius Aloysius, the exacting, remembered garrulously that he
had as yet seen nothing of the rubber-neck-boat-birds and suggested
that they were even now graciously "hollering like an'thing" in some
remote fastness of the park. So Patrick gave commands and the march
was resumed with bliss now beaming on all the faces so lately clouded.
Every turn of the endless walks brought new wonders to these little
ones who were gazing for the first time upon the great world of growing
things of which Miss Bailey had so often told them. The policeman's
warning had been explicit and they followed decorously in the paths
and picked none of the flowers which, as Eva had heard of old, were
sticking right up out of the ground. And other flowers there were
dangling high or low on tree or shrub, while here and there across the
grass a bird came hopping or a squirrel ran. But the pilgrims never
swerved. Full well they knew that these delights were not for such as
they.
It was, therefore, with surprise and concern that they at last debouched
upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a towering
pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children, with
here and there a beneficent policeman looking serenely on.
"Dast _we_ walk on it?" cried Morris. "Oh, Patrick, dast we?"
"Ask the cop," Nathan suggested. It was his first speech for an hour,
for Becky's misadventure with the chatelaine bag and the water-lake
had made him more than ever sure that his own method of safe-keeping
was the best.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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