FullReads

I know, by long experience with younger kindergartners and social workers in after years, that this kind of “visiting” presents many perplexities to persons of a certain temperament, but I never entered any house where I felt the least sensation of being out of place. I don’t think this flexibility is a gift of especially high order, nor that it would be equally valuable in all walks of life, but it is of great service in this sort of work. Whether I sat in a stuffed chair or on a nailkeg or an inverted washtub it was always equally agreeable to me. The “getting into relation,” perfectly, and without the loss of a moment, gave me a sense of mental and spiritual exhilaration. I never had to adapt myself elaborately to a strange situation in order to be in sympathy. I never said to myself: “But for God’s grace I might be the woman on that cot; unloved, uncared for, with a new-born child at my side and a dozen men drinking in the saloon just on the other side of the wall * * * or that mother of five–convivial, dishonest, unfaithful * * * or that timid, frail, little creature struggling to support a paralytic husband.” I never had to give myself logical reasons for being where I was, nor wonder what I should say; my one idea was to keep the situation simple and free from embarrassment to any one; to be as completely a part of it as if I had been born there; to be helpful without being intrusive; to show no surprise whatever happened; above all to be cheerful, strong and bracing, not weakly sentimental.

As the day of opening approached an unexpected and valuable aide-de-camp appeared on the scene. An American girl of twelve or thirteen slipped in the front door one day when I was practicing children’s songs, whereupon the following colloquy ensued.

“What’s this place goin’ to be?”

“A kindergarten.”

“What’s that?”

Explanation suited to the questioner, followed.

“Can I come in afternoons, on my way home from school and see what you do?”

“Certainly.”

“Can I stay now and help round?”

“Yes indeed, I should be delighted.”

“What’s the bird for?”

“What are all birds for?” I answered, just to puzzle her.

“I dunno. What’s the plants and flowers for?”

“What are all flowers for?” I demanded again.

“But I thought ’twas a school.”

“It is, but it’s a new kind.”

“Where’s the books?”

“The children are going to be under six; we shan’t have reading and writing.”

We sat down to work together, marking out and cutting brown paper envelopes for the children’s sewing or weaving, binding colored prints with gold paper and putting them on the wall with thumb tacks, and arranging all the kindergarten materials tidily on the shelves of the closets. Next day was a holiday and she begged to come again. I consented and told her that she might bring a friend if she liked and we would lunch together.

“I guess not,” she said, with just a hint of jealousy in her tone. “You and I get on so well that mebbe we’d be bothered with another girl messin’ around, and she’d be one more to wash up for after lunch.”

From that moment, the Corporal, as I called her, was a stanch ally and there was seldom a day in the coming years when she did not faithfully perform all sorts of unofficial duties, attaching herself passionately to my service with the devotion of a mother or an elder sister. She proved at the beginning a kind of travelling agent for the school haranguing mothers on the street corners and addressing the groups of curious children who gathered at the foot of the school steps.

“You’d ought to go upstairs and see the inside of it!” she would exclaim. “It’s just like going around the world. There’s a canary bird, there’s fishes swimmin’ in a glass bowl, there’s plants bloomin’ on the winder sills, there’s a pianner, and more’n a million pictures! There’s closets stuffed full o’ things to play and work with, and whatever the scholars make they’re goin’ to take home if it’s good. There’s a play-room with red rings painted on the floor and they’re going to march and play games on ’em. She can play the pianner standin’ up or settin’ down, without lookin’ at her hands to see where they’re goin’. She’s goin’ to wear white, two a week, and I got Miss Lannigan to wash ’em for her for fifteen cents apiece. I tell her the children ’round here’s awful dirty and she says the cleaner she is the cleaner they’ll be…. No, ’tain’t goin’ to be no Sunday School,” said the voluble Corporal. “No, ’tain’t goin’ to be no Mission; no, ’tain’t goin’ to be no Lodge! She says it’s a new kind of a school, that’s all I know, and next Monday’ll see it goin’ full blast!”