"So-o-oh," ran the maternal greeting, "you comes three times late on the school mit dirty faces." Eva hung her guilty head. "And I wash you every day the face, und send you on the block plenty time? Hein?" Eva nodded the guilty head. "Und now comes such a card from off the school sayin' how you comes late und dirty, und the Principal, he wants he shall see me to-morrow, quarter after three." A silence followed these thunderous words. Eva's guilt engulfed her, although hers was the clearest conscience among all the candidates for return tickets. Her gentle spirit had been unequal to the orgy in which braver souls were wallowing.
"I wants," she whispered now, "I wants I shall be put back. I don't likes it by Miss Blakeses room. I ain't monitors off of nothings, und Miss Blake she hollers on me, und Patrick he is put back. I likes I shall be put back too."
"Sooner you feels like that," said Mrs. Gonorowsky with sound logic, "why aind you stayed back by Miss Bailey's room? Aind you told me how you wants you shall be 'moted, and learn off a new book?"
"Not 'out Miss Bailey," Eva protested. "I couldn't to learn 'out Miss Bailey. I want Miss Bailey shall be 'moted too."
"Und why ain't she 'moted?" demanded the voice of reason.
At this question--its answer had long been torture to her loyal little heart--Eva broke into wild tears. Changing over to the voice of love, Mrs. Gonorowsky soothed and cuddled and petted her until Eva found speech again.
"It's somethin' fierce," she whispered. "In all my world I ain't never seen how it is fierce. I shall better, maybe, whisper mit you in the ear. It's like this: She ain't smart enough. Becky Zalmanowsky, she ain't smart enough, und Hymie Solomon, he ain't smart enough, und Jakey Fishandler, he is a greeney, und Teacher, she gets left back mit them."
"Gott!" cried Mrs. Gonorowsky, "who says she ain't smart enough?"
"All right," said her mother, whose admiration for Miss Bailey was great and of long standing. "I goes on the school to-morrow for see him at quarter after three."
When Mrs. Gonorowsky reached the big school-house, she found that her audience with the Principal was not to be a private one, for a dozen or more mothers were gathered in the yard. A regular investigation was on foot. Every one concerned had recognized that there was some organization about Room 19's sedition, and Miss Blake had first repudiated the acquaintance and friendship of Miss Bailey, and had then gone on to repudiate all responsibility for what she now termed "Bailey's Brats."