Little Citizens | Page 7

mit me."
But with the assistance of the neighbours, the policeman on the beat
and the truant officer, they were finally dragged to the halls of learning
and delivered into the hands of Miss Bailey, who installed them in
widely separated seats and seemed blandly unimpressed by their
evident determination to make things unpleasant in Room 18. She met
Leah's anticipatory apologies with:
"Of course they'll be good. I shall see that they behave. Yes, I shall see,
too, that Patrick Brennan does not fight with Percival. You musn't
worry about them any more, but I fear they have made worrying a habit
with you. If you will send them to school at a quarter to nine every
morning, and at ten minutes to one in the afternoon, I shall do the rest."
And Leah went out into the sunshine free, for the first time in six years.
Free to wander through the streets, to do a little desultory shopping, to
go down to the river and to watch the workmen driving rivets in the

great new bridge. Never had she spent so pleasant a morning, and her
heart was full of gratitude and peace when she reflected that hours such
as these would henceforth be the order of the day.
The advantages of a free education did not appeal to "them Yonowsky
devils." Leah was forced to drag her reluctant charges twice a day to
the school-house door--sometimes even up the stairs to Room 18--and
the reports with which Miss Bailey met her were not enthusiastic. Still,
Teacher admitted, too much was not to be expected from little boys
coming in contact, for the first time, with authority.
"Only send them regularly," she pleaded, "and perhaps they will learn
to be happy here." And Leah, in spite of countless obstacles and
difficulties, sent them.
They were unusually mutinous one morning, and their dressing had
been one long torment to Leah. They persisted in untying strings and
unbuttoning buttons. They shrieked, they lay upon the floor and kicked,
they spilled coffee upon their "jumpers," and systematically and
deliberately reduced their sister to the verge of distraction and of tears.
They were already late when she dragged them to the corner of the
school, and there they made their last stand by sitting stolidly down
upon the pavement.
Leah could not cope with their two rigid little bodies, and, through
welling tears of weariness and exasperation, she looked blankly up and
down the dingy street for succour. If only her ally, Mr. Brennan, the
policeman on the beat, would come! But Mr. Brennan was guarding a
Grand Street crossing until such time as the last straggling child should
have safely passed the dangers of the horse-cars, and nothing came in
answer to Leah's prayer but a push-cart laden with figs and dates and
propelled by a tall man, long-coated and fur-capped. His first glance
read the tableau, and in an instant he grasped Percival, shook him into
animation, threw him through the big door, and turned to reason with
Algernon. But that rebel had already seen the error of his ways and was
meekly ascending the steps and waving a resigned adieu to his sister.
The heavy door clanged. Leah raised grateful eyes to her knight, and
the thing was done. For the rest of that day Aaron Kastrinsky sold dates

and figs at a reckless discount and dreamed of the fair oval of a girl's
face framed in a shawl no more scarlet than her lips, while Leah's heart
sang of a youth in a fur cap and a long coat who had been able to "boss
them awful boys."
Daily thereafter did Aaron Kastrinsky establish his gay green push-cart
outside the school door set apart for the very little boys and drive a half
hour's bustling trade ere the children were all housed. And daily two
naughty small boys were convoyed to the door by a red-shawled,
dark-eyed sister. Very slowly greetings grew from shy glance to shy
smile, from swift drooping of the lashes to swift rise of colour, from
gentle sweep of eyes to sustained regard, from formal good-morning to
protracted chats. But before this happy stage was reached the twins
decided that they no longer required safe conduct to the fountain of
knowledge, and that Leah's attendance covered them with ridicule in
the eyes of more independent spirits. But she refused to relax her
vigilance, nay, rather she increased it; for she began to force her
mutinous brothers to the synagogue on Sabbath mornings. The twins
soon came to associate the vision of Aaron Kastrinsky with the idea of
restraint and of stern virtue, for on the way to the synagogue he walked
by Leah's side--looking strangely incomplete without his green
push-cart--and drove them by the sheer force