“Why,” said Hart’s aunt, “the kindergarten’s in Mrs. Major Rogers’ hotel––the Forest Queen!”
“After the fire, Mrs. Major Rogers most kindly gave us the free use of one of her largest rooms,” Santa Fé said; “and we are installed here until our own building can be repaired. I have spared you the sight, madam, of that melancholy ruin. I confess that when I look at it the tears come into my eyes.”
“I don’t wonder, I’m sure,” said Hart’s aunt. “I think I’d cry over it myself. But what a real down good woman Mrs. Major Rogers must be! Mr. Hill told me she gives the Dorcas Society the use of a room, too.”
“She is a noble, high-toned lady, madam,” Santa Fé said. “Since her cruel bereavement she has devoted to good works all the time that she can spare from the arduous duties by which she wins her livelihood. Words fail me to say enough in her praise! 112 Come right in, madam––but be prepared for a sad surprise!”
Hart said he didn’t know how much surprised his aunt was––but he said when he got inside the Forest Queen, into the bar-room where Charley’s faro layout usually was, he was so surprised himself he felt as if he’d been kicked by a mule!
There was the little tables for drinks, right enough; and out of the way in a corner with a cloth over it, same as usual, was the wheel. (It was used so little, the wheel was––nobody but Mexicans, now and then, caring for it––Santa Fé owned up afterwards he’d forgot it clean!) That much of the place was just as it always was; and the big table, taking up half the room, looked so natural––with the chairs up to it, and layouts of chips at all the places––that Hart was beginning to think Santa Fé was setting up a rig on him: ’till he seen what a lot of queer things besides chips there was on the table––and knowed they wasn’t no game layout, and so sized ’em up to be what Charley’d scrambled together when he set out to play his kindergarten 113 hand. And when he noticed the bar was curtained off by sheets he said he stopped worrying––feeling dead certain Charley’d dealt himself all the aces he needed to take him through.
“You don’t need to be told, madam, being such an authority on kindergartens,” said Santa Fé, “how inadequate is our little outfit for educational purposes. But you must remember that the fire destroyed almost everything, and that we have merely improvised what will serve our purposes until the new supply arrives. We succeeded in saving from the conflagration our large table, and our chairs, and most of the small tables––used by individual children having backward intellects and needing especial care. But nearly all of the other appliances of the school were lost to us, and damage was done to much of what we saved. Here, you see, is a little table with only three legs left, the fourth having been burned.” And, sure enough, Hart said, Santa Fé turned up one of the little tables for drinks and one of its legs was burnt off! “All of our slates,” he went 114 ahead, “similarly were destroyed––and how much depends on slates in a kindergarten you know, madam, better than I do. Here is all that is left of one of them”––and he showed Hart’s aunt a bit of burnt wood that looked like it had been part of a slate-frame afore it got afire.
“Dear me! Dear me!” said Hart’s aunt. “It’s just pitiful, Mr. Charles! I wonder how you can get along at all.”
“It is not easy getting along, madam,” Santa Fé said. “But we have managed to supply ourselves with a layout––I––that is––I mean we have provided ourselves with some of the simpler articles of most importance; and with these, for the time being, we keep our little pupils’ hands and minds not unprofitably employed. For instance, the ivory disks of various colors––which you see arranged upon the table as the pupils have left them––serve very successfully to elucidate the arithmetical processes of numeration, addition, and subtraction; and the more intelligent children are taught to observe that the disks of varying colors are 115 varyingly numbered––white, 1; red, 5, and blue, 10––and so are encouraged to identify a concrete arbitrary figure with an abstract thought.”
“That’s something new in kindergartening, Mr. Charles,” said Hart’s aunt; “and it’s as good as it can be. I mean to put it right into use in our kindergarten at home. Do you get the disks at the places where they sell kindergarten supplies?”