Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life — John Shaqi
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
Miss Bailey had listened to authoritative lectures upon "The Place and
Influence of the Teacher in Community Life," and was debating as to
whether she had better inflict her visit of remonstrance upon Mr.
Lazarus Gonorowsky, of the powerful and cultivated muscle, or upon Mr.
Nathan Gonorowsky, of the deplorable manners, when this opportunity
to bring the higher standards of living into the home was taken from
her. The house of Gonorowsky, in jagged fragments, was tested as by
fire and came forth united.
Eva was absent one morning, and Sadie presented the explanation in a
rather dirty envelope:
Dear Miss:
Excuse pliss that Eva Gonarofsky comes not on the school. We was moving
und she couldn't to find her clothes. Yurs Resptphs,
Her elders,
Nathan Gonorowsky,
Becky Ganurwoski.
"Is Eva going far away?" asked Teacher. "Will she come to this school
any more?"
"Teacher, yiss ma'an, sure she comes; she lives now by my house. My
uncle he lives by my house, too. Und my aunt."
"And you're not angry with your cousin anymore?"
"Teacher, no ma'an; I'm loving mit her. She's got on now all mine best
clothes the while her mamma buys her new. My aunt buys new clothes,
too. Und my uncle."
Sadie reported this shopping epidemic so cheerily that Teacher asked
with mild surprise:
"Where are all their old things?"
"Teacher, they're burned. Und my uncle's store und his _all_ of
goods, und his house und his three sewing machines. All, all burned!"
"Oh, dear me!" said Teacher. "Your poor uncle! Now he can never pay
that thousand dollars."
Sadie regarded Teacher with puzzled eyes.
"Sure he pays. He's now 'most as rich like Van'pilt. I guess he's got
a hundred dollers. He pays all right, all right, und my papa had a
party over him: he had such a awful glad!"
"Glad on your uncle?" cried Teacher, startled into colloquialisms.
"Yiss ma'an. Und my mamma has a glad on Eva's mamma, und my gran'ma
has a glad on both of papas und both of mammas, und my gran'pa has a
glad just like my gran'ma. All, all glad!"
As Teacher walked towards Grand Street that afternoon, she met a radiant
little girl with a small and most unsteady boy in tow. She recognized
Eva and surmised the cousin whose coldness had hurt her even unto
tears.
"Well, Eva, and what little boy is this?" she asked.
And the beaming and transformed Eva answered:
"It's my little cousin. He's lovin' mit me now. Sadie, too, is lovin'.
I take him out the while it's healthy he walks, on'y he ain't so big
und he falls. Say, Teacher, it's nice when he falls. I holds him in
my hands."
And fall he did. Eva picked him up, greatly to their mutual delight,
and explained:
"He's heavy, und my this here arm ain't yet so healthy, but I hold him
in my hands the while he's cousins mit me, und over cousins I'm got
all times that kind feelin'."
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
"I guess I don't need I should go on the school," announced Algernon
Yonowsky.
"I guess you do," said his sister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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