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When A Man’s Widowed
by
“Send for the janitor,” he commanded, and then, “Miss Bailey, may I speak to you in the hall?”
Teacher invested Morris Mogilewsky in the chair and the position of authority, sent Patrick for the janitor, and, strangely shaken, followed the Principal.
“What is it?” she asked, miserably, when the door was closed. “What is the matter with that baby?”
“Well,” said the Principal kindly, “if you were more experienced you would be less shocked than I fear you are going to be. The child is simply and most abominably drunk.”
“Drunk!” gasped Miss Bailey. “Drunk! and not seven years old!”
“Drunk,” echoed the Principal. “Poor little chap! Did Miss Blake tell you the history?–The mother dead, the father away all day, no woman’s care. Of course, the end will be the reformatory, but I wonder if we can do anything before that end is reached?”
“Oh, it can’t be quite hopeless!” cried Miss Bailey. “Please give him to me. But I want to see that father.”
“So you shall,” the Principal assured her. “I shall send for him to-morrow to explain this. But he will be entirely at sea. I have him here every two or three weeks about one or other of his children–there are two boys in the upper grades–and the poor devil never can explain. However, I shall let you know when he is here.”
The morrow proved the Principal’s surmise to have been correct. Mr. Lazarus Diamantstein stood in helpless and hopeless misery before a court of inquiry comprising the Principal, Miss Bailey, the physician of the Board of Health, a representative of the Gerry Society, the truant officer, the indignant janitor, and a policeman who had come to the school in reference to the florid language of his own small son, and, for scenic effect, was pressed into service. Mr. Diamantstein turned from one to another of these stern-faced officials and to each in turn he made his unaltered plea:
“Mine leetle Izzie was a goot leetle boy. He don’t never make like you says. Ach! never, never!”
Again, for effect, scenic or moral, the Principal indicated one of the hostile figures of the court. “This gentleman,” said he, “belongs to a society which will take charge of your son. Have you ever, Mr. Diamantstein, heard of the Gerry Society?”
Poor Mr. Diamantstein cowered. In all the terrifying world in which he groped so darkly, the two forces against which he had been most often warned were the Board of Health, which might at any time and without notice wash out one’s house and confiscate one’s provisions; and the Gerry Society, which washed one’s children with soap made from the grease of pigs, and fed them with all sorts of “traef” and unblessed meat.
“Ach, no!” he implored. “Gott, no! You should not take and make so mit mine’ leetle boy. He ain’t a bad boy. He sure ain’t.”
“Really, I don’t think he is,” Miss Bailey’s cool and quiet voice interposed, and in a moment the harassed father was at her side pleading, extenuating, fawning.
“That young lady,” said the Principal, “is your only hope. If Miss Bailey–” Mr. Diamantstein interpreted this as an introduction and bowed most wonderfully–“If Miss Bailey will keep Isidore in her class he may stay in the school. If not, this gentleman–By the way, Miss Bailey, is he at school to-day?”
“Oh, yes, and behaving beautifully. Perhaps his father would care to see him. Will you come with me, Mr. Diamantstein?”
Yearnings to see the cause of all this trouble and sorrow were not very strong in the paternal bosom, but Mr. Diamantstein welcomed the opportunity to escape from officialdom and inquiry.
As she led the way to Room 18, Teacher was again impressed by the furtive helplessness of the man. Living in a land whose language was well-nigh unintelligible to him, ruled and judged by laws whose existence he could learn only by breaking them, driven out of one country, unwelcomed in another, Mr. Diamantstein was indeed a wanderer and an outcast. Some note of sympathy found its way into Miss Bailey’s efforts at conversation, and Mr. Diamantstein’s quick ear detected it. The vision of Isidore in his new surroundings, the pictures and flowers, the swinging canary and the plaster casts, impressed him mightily, while Miss Bailey’s evident and sincere interest in his efforts to do what he could for his boys took him entirely by surprise. He admonished Isidore to superhuman efforts towards the reformation which might keep him in this beautiful room and under the care of its lady, and, as he was about to return to his neglected sewing machine, he gave Miss Bailey all he had to give: