And the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally through the door of the cold and empty room.
Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence.
Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse.
For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the fold—the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the poor child grieve over her sins of omission.
Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because Bloomah was slaving at something that her mother considered more important.
'The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on her mother.
At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-rooms she did cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes, school hours or no school hours.
Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment, and the portress of goods to and from S. Cohn's Emporium in Holloway, and the watch-dog when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.
'Lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when Bloomah tearfully pleaded for that course. 'My things are much too valuable to be locked up. But I know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious Banner.'
When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren—and they came frequently—Bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of service. Curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived: