He was then dragged through long halls and up tall stairs by a large boy, who spoke to him disdainfully as “greenie,” so that his spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and of children who laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy gone, and despair took him for its own.
Down upon the floor he dropped, and wailed, and wept, and kicked. It was then that he heard, for the first time, the voice which now he loved.
“Why, my dear little chap, you mustn’t cry like that. What’s the matter?”
The hand was gentle and the question kind, and these, combined with a faint perfume suggestive of drug-stores and barber-shops—but nicer than either—made him uncover his hot little face. Kneeling beside him was a lady, and he forced his eyes to that perilous ascent; from shoes to skirt, from skirt to jumper, from jumper to face, they trailed in dread uncertainty, but at the face they stopped. They had found—rest.
Morris allowed himself to be gathered into the lady’s arms, and held upon her knee, and when his sobs no longer rent the very foundations of his pink and wide-spread tie, he answered her question in a voice as soft as his eyes, and as gently sad.
“I ain’t so big, and I don’t know where is my mamma.”
Thereafter he had been the first to arrive every morning, and the last to leave every afternoon; and under the care of Teacher, his liege lady, he had grown in wisdom and love and happiness. But the greatest of these was love. And now, when the other boys and girls were planning surprises and gifts of price for Teacher, his hands were as empty as his heart was full. Appeal to his mother met with denial prompt and energetic.
“For what you go und make, over Christmas, presents?”
“All the other fellows buys her presents, und I’m loving mit her too; it’s polite I gives her presents the while I’m got such a kind feeling over her,” said Morris stoutly.
“Well, we ain’t got no money for buy nothings,” said Mrs. Mogilewsky sadly. “No money, und your papa, he has all times a scare he shouldn’t to get no more.”