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“I can’t think at all,” answered Constance Bailey. “They were a fine class, and Miss Blake is a fine teacher.”

“These misunderstandings happen,” said the Principal, “in schools just as they do in marriages. I’m going down now to interview the mothers of most of these young people here. Do you mind staying and keeping the children for a few moments? I must get this thing straightened out.”

“We shall all be here when you come back,” Miss Bailey promised.

Eva Gonorowsky had but reflected the general opinion when she told her mother that Miss Bailey had been left back “because she wasn’t smart enough,” and the Principal found himself in the midst of an indignation meeting. In Yiddish, in English, in all grades and dialects between the two, the mothers protested against this ruling.

There was hardly one of them who did not owe Miss Bailey some meed of gratitude–and they were of a race which still practises that virtue.

So they made ovation, fervid, gesticulatory, and obscure. But through much harping on one theme they made their meaning clear.

“So you think,” said the Principal, “that Miss Bailey is still teaching the smallest children because she is not as clever as the other teachers. You never were more mistaken in your lives. The hardest child to teach and manage, as all of you very well know, is the smallest child. The very best teaching should come at the very beginning.”

This statement, when it was translated by those who understood it to those who did not, met with a cordial rumble of approval.

“Your children,” he went on, “are old enough now to be taught by an ordinary teacher. Miss Blake is much more than that.”

This translated was not very well received. Stout inarticulate mothers drew their shawls more closely about them and grunted dissent.

“But although they are old enough they haven’t been proving themselves good enough, and so I have decided–as you express it–to promote Miss Bailey too, and to let her have charge of them until the end of the year. I shall notify Miss Blake to-morrow. Meanwhile, if you ladies will go up to Room 18 I think you will find your children there, and I know you will find Miss Bailey. Perhaps,” he added with a smile, “she would be glad to receive your congratulations upon her promotion.”

The mothers steamed and streamed away, led by Mrs. Mowgelewsky whose wig was very much awry, and by Mrs. Gonorowsky, whose mind was in a triumphant flame, while far in the rear there pattered the grandmother of Isidore Applebaum, whose mind was quite unchanged by the events of the afternoon.

Isidore had managed to explain Miss Bailey’s disabilities to her, but her almost complete deafness left her quite unmoved by the Principal’s eloquence in either original or translated form. She only knew that Miss Bailey had been at last allowed to retain the guardianship of Isidore.

Fifteen unintelligible congratulations are rather overwhelming, and Miss Bailey was accordingly overwhelmed by the inrush.

The mothers fell upon her bodily and pinned her to her chair. They kissed her hands. They kissed her gown. They patted her back. They embraced or chastised their offspring with equal violence. They admired the pictures, stood enraptured before the aquarium, touched the flowers with hungry appreciation, and enjoyed themselves immensely.

Mrs. Gonorowsky was a very champion among the hosts. She put Eva’s misconduct upon the basis of etiquette. Surely it was not polite, she pointed out, that Eva should allow herself to be exalted over her teacher. As Mrs. Gonorowsky lucidly phrased it:

“Eva, she gets put back the whiles she don’t wants you shall think she shows off that she iss smarter als Teacher–somethin’s like that aind polite. Und anyway now the Pincipal says Eva aind smarter.”

“That’s very kind of him,” remarked Miss Bailey, trying to understand for the third time a whispered communication from Isidore Applebaum’s grandmother. The speech, whatever it meant, was clearly of a cheerful and encouraging nature, and at the close of each repetition the old lady patted Teacher encouragingly upon the shoulder, and winked and nodded to an amazing extent.

Isidore was dragged from his lair and pressed into service as interpreter.

“She says like this out of Jewish,” he began, “she says you don’t have to care what nobody says over how you is smart or how you ain’t smart. She says that don’t makes nothings mit her the whiles you is lovin’ mit childrens.”

Again the old lady patted Teacher’s shoulder, nodding and smiling the while with a knowing and encouraging air.

“Und she says,” Isidore went on translating the hint with some delicacy, “she says we got a boarder by our house what ain’t so awful smart, und”–here Isidore whispered–” he studies nights.”

Miss Bailey took the old lady’s hand and shook it gratefully.