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
"Of course you have," acquiesced the doctor. "So have I. We all get
it at times and its name is--"
"Don't listen to him, honey," Miss Bailey interrupted. "You will be
all right again in a few weeks."
"Years," interposed the doctor.
"And while you are here I shall come to see you every day to bring you
books and candy and to tell you stories."
"Tell me one now," Morris implored. "Take off your hat so I can put
mine head at your necktie, und then you should tell me that story over,
'Once upon some time when that world was young.'"
It was nearly five o'clock when Miss Bailey gently disengaged herself
and set out upon her uptown way. She passed from the hush of the
hospital walls and halls into another phase of her accountability.
Upon the steps, a woman, wild-eyed and dishevelled, was hurling an
unintelligible mixture of pleading and abuse upon the stalwart frame
of Patrick Brennan's father, the policeman on the beat. The woman tore
her hair, wept, and beat her breast, but Mr. Brennan's calm was
impassive.
"You can't see him," he remarked. "Didn't they tell you that Thursday
was visiting day? Well, and isn't this Choos-day? Go home now and shut
up."
"Mine Gott, he will die!" wailed the woman.
"Not he," said Mr. Brennan. "Go home now and come back on Thursday.
There's no good standing there. And there's no good in coming back in
half an hour. You'll not see him before Thursday."
The woman fell to wild weeping and her sympathetic neighbours followed
suit.
"Ach, mine little boy!" she wailed. "Mine arme little Morris!" And
"arme little Morris" the neighbours echoed.
"Morris Mogilewsky?" asked Miss Bailey.
"Yes ma'an," answered Mr. Brennan with a shrug.
"Yes ma'an," cried the neighbours in shrill chorus.
"Yes ma'an," wailed the woman. "Mine Morris. They makes I shouldn't
to see him. They takes him here the while he gets killed off of a
horse."
"Killed und chawed off of a horse," shrieked the comforting neighbours.
"And are you his mother?" pursued Miss Bailey.
"Yes ma'an," they all answered as before.
"Very well, I think I can take you to see him. But not if you are going
to be noisy."
A stillness as of death settled upon Mrs. Mogilewsky as she sank down
at Miss Bailey's feet in dumb appeal. And Constance Bailey saw in the
eyes, so like Morris's, fixed upon her face, a world of misery which
she had surely though innocently wrought.
Dr. Ingraham was summoned and bent to Miss Bailey's will. A few moments
later Morris's languid gaze embraced his mother, his teacher, and his
doctor. The latter found Mrs. Mogilewsky's woe impervious to any
soothing. "Chawed off of a horse!" she whimpered. "All the child what
I got, chawed off of a horse!"
"Wicked old horse!" ejaculated Teacher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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