, but she don't know
nothings 'tall."

"What do you suppose is the matter with her?" demanded Hymie. "Miss
Blake, she don't act crazy. She don't give us no talk 'out no sense."

Now Hymie and Isidore were old friends and cronies. In the days before a
Truant Officer and their distracted fathers had consigned them to
school, Hymie and he had trod the ways which might have led them to the
Children's Court and the Reformatory; but the Board of Education chanced
to be the first power that laid hands upon them, and Hymie, who was a
year older than his friend, and who had once undergone some intermittent
education, was put in Miss Blake's class, while Isidore, virgin soil
where prescribed learning was concerned, joined the First Readers. Miss
Bailey's teachings as reported by Isidore formed amazing subjects for
conversation.

"Und she says," he would report, "that nobody dasn't to steal nothings
off of somebody."

"Then how does she think we shall ever get anything?"

"Somebody shall give it to us."

"Who?"

"Teacher ain't said."

"No, I guess she ain't. I'd like to see her gettin' along on just what
was give to her."

"Well," Isidore remembered, "she says we shall 'work-un-strive.'"

"She does, does she? An' git pinched by the Gerry Society? She knows as
good as you do that nobody would let you work. An' she knows as good as
you do, too, that craps ain't safe round here no more; an' that you just
can't git nothin' unless you take it. She's actin' crazy just to fool
you."

"No, she ain't," Isidore maintained, "she don't know nothings over them
things."

"An' her grown up," sneered Hymie; "say, but you're easy!"

This faith in and affection for Miss Bailey were not confined to the
little First Readers who inhabited Room 18 from nine until twelve, and
again from one until three. These were Miss Bailey's official
responsibilities, but Gertie Armusheffsky's education was a private
affair, though her devotion was no less wholehearted. Her instruction
was carried on sometimes amid the canaries and fern baskets of Room 18,
and sometimes at Miss Bailey's home.

For Gertie, though nearly fifteen years old, was allowed but rare and
scanty freedom for the pursuit of learning. The grandfather with whom
she lived had imported her from Poland to assist him in the conduct of
his little shop in Goerck Street.

He was a miserly old man. The shop was little and mean, and Gertie's
life in it was little and miserly and mean.