PAGE 6
Merry Christmas In The Tenements
by
“What,” I say, holding a silver dime up before the oldest, a smart little chap of seven–“what would you do if I gave you this?”
“Get change,” he replies promptly. When he is told that it is his own, to buy toys with, his eyes open wide with wondering incredulity. By degrees he understands. The father does not. He looks questioningly from one to the other. When told, his respect increases visibly for “the rich gentleman.”
They were villagers of the same community in southern Italy, these people and others in the tenements thereabouts, and they moved their patron saint with them. They cluster about his worship here, but the worship is more than an empty form. He typifies to them the old neighborliness of home, the spirit of mutual help, of charity, and of the common cause against the common enemy. The community life survives through their saint in the far city to an unsuspected extent. The sick are cared for; the dreaded hospital is fenced out. There are no Italian evictions. The saint has paid the rent of this attic through two hard months; and here at his shrine the Calabrian village gathers, in the persons of these three, to do him honor on Christmas eve.
Where the old Africa has been made over into a modern Italy, since King Humbert’s cohorts struck the up-town trail, three hundred of the little foreigners are having an uproarious time over their Christmas tree in the Children’s Aid Society’s school. And well they may, for the like has not been seen in Sullivan Street in this generation. Christmas trees are rather rarer over here than on the East Side, where the German leavens the lump with his loyalty to home traditions. This is loaded with silver and gold and toys without end, until there is little left of the original green. Santa Claus’s sleigh must have been upset in a snow-drift over here, and righted by throwing the cargo overboard, for there is at least a wagon-load of things that can find no room on the tree. The appearance of “teacher” with a double armful of curly-headed dolls in red, yellow, and green Mother-Hubbards, doubtful how to dispose of them, provokes a shout of approval, which is presently quieted by the principal’s bell. School is “in” for the preliminary exercises. Afterward there are to be the tree and ice-cream for the good children. In their anxiety to prove their title clear, they sit so straight, with arms folded, that the whole row bends over backward. The lesson is brief, the answers to the point.
“What do we receive at Christmas?” the teacher wants to know. The whole school responds with a shout, “Dolls and toys!” To the question, “Why do we receive them at Christmas?” the answer is not so prompt. But one youngster from Thompson Street holds up his hand. He knows. “Because we always get ’em,” he says; and the class is convinced: it is a fact. A baby wails because it cannot get the whole tree at once. The “little mother”–herself a child of less than a dozen winters–who has it in charge, cooes over it, and soothes its grief with the aid of a surreptitious sponge-cake evolved from the depths of teacher’s pocket. Babies are encouraged in these schools, though not originally included in their plan, as often the one condition upon which the older children can be reached. Some one has to mind the baby, with all hands out at work.
The school sings “Santa Lucia” and “Children of the Heavenly King,” and baby is lulled to sleep.
“Who is this King?” asks the teacher, suddenly, at the end of a verse. Momentary stupefaction. The little minds are on ice-cream just then; the lad nearest the door has telegraphed that it is being carried up in pails. A little fellow on the back seat saves the day. Up goes his brown fist.