PAGE 7
"Games In Gardens"
by
He turned hand-springs upon the heap of clothes. He stood upon his head upon the same rostrum until his eyes bulged, and Miss Bailey implored him to desist. He wrested the shot from Isidore Wishnewsky, a person of no spirit, and then he “put” it neatly into the waist line of its owner, who promptly sat back gasping.
“Don’t you dast to set, Isidore Wishnewsky,” shrilled Sarah Schodsky in a panic. “I guess you dunno what is polite for you. Sooner somebody lends you somethings it ain’t polite you should set on it! Ain’t it fierce how he makes, Missis Bailey?”
“It is a little rude,” Miss Bailey admitted in a voice as unsteady as Isidore Wishnewsky.
“I never in my world seen how they all makes,” said Yetta Aaronsohn, that authority on Hygiene and the Care of the Body. “They could to make themselves awful sicknesses over it–home sicknesses, even, und lay-on-the-bed sicknesses, und comes-the-doctor sicknesses.”
“Oh, I hope not!” Teacher rallied the pessimistic Yetta, “though they certainly do seem to be getting very tired.”
By this time the track team of the First Reader Class had exhausted itself and its repertoire, and came forward, hot but confident, for its laurels. There was something for each one, and for each a little word of special commendation. And if Teacher’s voice was more tender, her eyes more gentle when Morris’s turn came, she still was gentle and tender enough with all of them.
At the end she made a short address to victors and audience alike. She thanked them for their great effort to give her pleasure, and for the great pleasure they had given her, and then added:
“When I brought your prizes this morning I had no idea what the party was to be like, and so of course I didn’t get just what I would have given you if I had known. But now that I do know how wonderfully our boys can jump and run, I shall bring for each boy on Monday morning a regular running suit, and whenever you have ‘Games in Gardens’ again you won’t have to borrow anything. Perhaps the Principal would like you to have ‘Games in Gardens’ on the roof some afternoon, and you could invite the other classes. I am sure they’d love it.”
“You liked it all right, all right, didn’t you, Teacher?” demanded Patrick.
“Liked it!” she echoed. “Why, I was simply delighted.”
“Und s’prised?” questioned Morris.
“I was never more so in all my long, long life,” answered Constance Bailey with entire conviction.