FullReads

“Me too?” implored Morris. “Oh, Patrick, c’n I go too?”

“I guess so,” answered the Leader of the Line graciously. But he turned a deaf ear to Isaac Borrachsohn’s implorings to be allowed to join the party. Full well did Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac’s holiday attire and the impressionable nature of Eva’s soul, and gravely did he fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue cloth and brass buttons of his sire, might be outshone.

At Eva’s earnest request, Sadie, her cousin, was invited, and Morris suggested that the Monitor of the Window Boxes should not be slighted by his colleagues of the goldfish and the line. So Nathan Spiderwitz was raised to Alpine heights of anticipation by visions of a window box “as big as blocks and streets,” where every plant, in contrast to his lanky charges, bore innumerable blossoms. Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein was unanimously nominated a member of the expedition; by Patrick, because they were neighbours at St. Mary’s Sunday-school; by Morris, because they were classmates under the same Rabbi at the synagogue; by Nathan, because Ignatius Aloysius was a member of the “Clinton Street gang”; by Sadie, because he had “long pants sailor suit”; by Eva, because the others wanted him.

Eva reached home that afternoon tingling with anticipation and uncertainty. What if her mother, with one short word, should close forever the gates of joy and boat-birds? But Mrs. Gonorowsky met her small daughter’s elaborate plea with the simple question:

“Who pays you the car-fare?”

“Does it need car-fare to go?” faltered Eva.

“Sure does it,” answered her mother. “I don’t know how much, but some it needs. Who pays it?”

“Patrick ain’t said.”

“Well, you should better ask him,” Mrs. Gonorowsky advised, and, on the next morning, Eva did. She thereby buried the leader under the ruins of his fallen castle of clouds, but he struggled through them with the suggestion that each of his guests should be her, or his, own banker.

“But ain’t you got no money ‘t all?” asked the guest of honour.

“Not a cent,” responded the host. “But I’ll get it. How much have you?”

“A penny. How much do I need?”

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Miss Bailey.”

School had not yet formally begun and Teacher was reading. She was hardly disturbed when the children drove sharp elbows into her shoulder and her lap, and she answered Eva’s–“Missis Bailey–oh, Missis Bailey,” with an abstracted–“Well dear?”

“Missis Bailey, how much money takes car-fare to the Central Park?”

Still with divided attention, Teacher replied–“Five cents, honey,” and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made embarrassing explanations with admirable tact.

There ensued weeks of struggle and economy for the exploring party, to which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person of Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky’s careful mother had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole responsibility, and he, with a guile which promised well for his future, had complied with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken. For Becky, poor child, though twelve years old and of an aspect eminently calculated to inspire trust in those who had never heldspeech with her, was a member of the First Reader Class only until such time as room could be found for her in some of the institutions where such unfortunates are bestowed.

Slowly and in diverse ways each of the children acquired the essential nickel. Some begged, some stole, some gambled, some bartered, some earned, but their greatest source of income, Miss Bailey, was denied to them. For Patrick knew that she would have insisted upon some really efficient guardian from a higher class, and he announced with much heat that he would not go at all under those circumstances.

At last the leader was called upon to set a day and appointed a Saturday in late May. He was disconcerted to find that only Ignatius Aloysius would travel on that day.