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A Christmas Present for a Lady, by Myra Kelly

The Naked Word electronic edition of....
A Christmas Present for a Lady
by Myra Kelly, 1904



It was the week before Christmas, and the First Reader Class, in a lower East
Side school, had, almost to a man, decided on the gifts to be lavished on
"Teacher." She was quite unprepared for any such observance on the part of her
small adherents, for her first study of the roll book had shown her that its
numerous Jacobs, Isidores, and Rachels belonged to a class to which Christmas
Day was much as other days. And so she went serenely on her way, all unconscious
of the swift and strict relation between her manner and her chances. She was,
for instance, the only person in the room who did not know that her criticism of
Isidore Belchatosky's hands and face cost her a tall "three for ten cents"
candlestick and a plump box of candy.
But Morris Mogilewsky, whose love for Teacher was far greater than the combined
loves of all the other children, had as yet no present to bestow. That his "kind
feeling" should be without proof when the lesser loves of Isidore Wishnewsky,
Sadie Gonorowsky, and Bertha Binderwitz were taking the tangible but surprising
forms which were daily exhibited to his confidential gaze was more than he could
bear. The knowledge saddened all his hours, and was the more maddening because
it could in no wise be shared by Teacher, who noticed his altered bearing and
tried with all sorts of artful beguilements to make him happy and at ease. But
her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his love. And he loved
her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes had clung for a
breath's space to her "like man's shoes" and had then crept timidly upward past
a black skirt, a "from silk" apron, a red "jumper," and "from gold" chain to her
"light face," she had been mistress of his heart of hearts. That was more than
three months ago. How well he remembered the day!
His mother had washed him horribly; and had taken him into the big red
schoolhouse, so familiar from the outside, but so full of unknown terrors
within. After his dusty little shoes had stumbled over the threshold he had
passed from ordeal to ordeal until, at last he was torn in mute and white- faced
despair from his mother's skirts.
He was then dragged through long halls and up tall stairs by a large boy, who
spoke to him disdainfully as "greenie," and cautioned him as to the laying down
softly and taking up gently of those poor, dusty shoes, 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. A hand was
forced between his aching body and the floor, and the voice said:
"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