FullReads

“Great!” answered Patrick. “I’m goin’ to let ye ast Miss Bailey to the party.”

Morris glowed with pride and importance. “I likes that,” he breathed.

“Well, you can do it. Ye don’t want to tell her what kind of a party it is. Just go up to her after school and say that ‘we invites her to come to my yard at ten o’clock in the mornin’, and bring seven prizes with her.'”

“Oh–oh-h-h! I couldn’t to say nothings like that,” Morris remonstrated. “I guess you don’t know what is polite. I don’t know has Missis Bailey got seven prizes.”

“She’ll get ’em all right, all right,” Patrick assured him; “ain’t she always givin’ ’em around? You just tell her ‘ten o’clock and seven prizes.’ It’s all right, I tell you. I could’a showed ye the picture on that paper of a lady standin’ up givin’ out the prizes. An’ Miss Bailey’s the only lady goin’ to be there.”

“It ain’t polite,” Morris maintained. But he had during these last athletic weeks broken so many of his canons and his laws that he accepted this last command with more docility than Patrick had expected.

“A party!” cried Miss Bailey, “now isn’t that nice? And for to-morrow morning. Of course I’ll be there. And what kind of a party is it to be, dear?”

“It’s something you says you likes you shall see. Und on the party you shall see it. Und you shall have a s’prise over it.”

“You grow more interesting every moment,” said Teacher. “Tell me more. I love surprises.”

“There ain’t no more,” Morris answered, “on’y,” and he took his conversational running-jump, “on’y maybe you shall bring seven prizes mit. I says maybe you ain’t got seven prizes. On’y Patrick says I shall say it out like that, ‘you shall come on the party und bring seven prizes.'”

“Seven!” reflected Teacher. “That is rather a large order, but I think I can manage it. Have you any idea, Morris, of what kind they should be?”

“Teacher, yiss, ma’am,” Morris answered, “‘fer-boys’ prizes.”

“I think I understand,” and Miss Bailey smiled at him. “You may tell Patrick that I and ‘seven fer-boys’ prizes’ will be at his house in the morning.”

She regarded the subject as closed. Not so Morris. Through all the succeeding occupations of the afternoon an idea persisted with him, and when the Teacher left the building at last she found him waiting for her on the wide steps.

“You want me, dear?” she asked.

“I shall tell you somethings,” Morris began in evident embarrassment.

“Yes, dear.”

“It’s over those prizes.”

“Yes, Morris.”

“Miss Bailey, it’s like this. You don’t need to care sooner you ain’t got on’y six prizes. Seven prizes I guess costs bunches und bunches from money. So six prizes comes on Patrick’s yard, that’s all right. Stands one boy what don’t needs no prize.”

“He must be a strange little boy,” commented Teacher. “I never before heard of a boy who didn’t like prizes.”

“Oh, he likes ’em; how he likes ’em. I ain’t said he ain’t got feelin’s over ’em. On’y it’s like this: he don’t needs you shall buy prizes for him the whiles you got to buy six prizes already.”

“I think I understand, dear,” Teacher answered, and she set out for the shopping district and bought six prizes of great glitter and little worth. But the seventh was such a watch as a boy might use and treasure through all the years of his boyhood.

The great day dawned bright and clear. Miss Bailey’s entrance, punctual and parcel-laden, in a festive frilly frock and a flowery hat, caused something almost like silence to fall upon the scene of the coming tournament. Eva Gonorowsky clasped Teacher’s unoccupied hand, Sarah Schodsky and Yetta Aaronsohn relieved her of her bundles. Sadie Gonorowsky gesticulated madly from the place upon the sofa which she was reserving with all the expanse of her outspread skirt.

Teacher approached the grand stand and took her place. The feminine First Readers swarmed upon the soap boxes. But neither leg nor arm nor even eye was moved by the seven masculine First Readers drawn up in the centre of the yard. Flags waved in such profusion and such uniformity that even Miss Bailey’s obligation to her hosts could not blind her to the fact that she had at last found the fifty-two American flags pasted together by the First Reader Class when Washington’s Birthday was in the air and the offing. Two weeks ago she had missed them out of the cupboard, and neither janitor nor Monitor could give her tidings of them. They looked very well, she was forced to admit, dangling from high fence and clothes line. And very bright and joyant was the whole scene. The little girls in their bright colors. The sky so blue. Mrs. Brennan’s pear tree in sturdy bloom. All was brilliant with a sense of Spring save the seven dark-clothed figures in the centre of the yard.