'As the Law of Moses!' echoed the women hoarsely.
Bloomah had an inspiration. 'The Law of Moses! Pooh! Don't you know this is written by the Meshummodim?'
The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the handbill was written by apostates, what could it hold but Satan's lies?
Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. 'Go home, you Narronim!' she cried pityingly from her perch. And then, veering round towards the children behind the bars: 'Shut up, you squalling sillies!' she cried. 'As for you, Golda Benjamin, I'm ashamed of you—a girl of your age! Put your sleeve down, cry-baby!'
Bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the police from observing another party of rioters—women, assisted by husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it open, and with a great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for their progeny.
The police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack upon doors and windows, and Bloomah was hastily set down in the seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.
The large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children, police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. But there was no riot. The law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. The children who had not the luck to be kidnapped escaped of themselves, some panic-stricken, some merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the school was empty.
The School Management Committee sat formally to consider this unprecedented episode. It was decided to cancel the attendance for the day. Red marks, black marks—all fell into equality; the very ciphers were reduced to their native nothingness. The school-week was made to end on the Thursday.
Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant sisterhood. On the wall shone the Banner.