Still, Teacher admitted, too much was not to be expected from little
boys coming in contact, for the first time, with authority.

"Only send them regularly," she pleaded, "and perhaps they will learn
to be happy here." And Leah, in spite of countless obstacles and
difficulties, sent them.

They were unusually mutinous one morning, and their dressing had been
one long torment to Leah. They persisted in untying strings and
unbuttoning buttons. They shrieked, they lay upon the floor and kicked,
they spilled coffee upon their "jumpers," and systematically and
deliberately reduced their sister to the verge of distraction and of
tears. They were already late when she dragged them to the corner of
the school, and there they made their last stand by sitting stolidly
down upon the pavement.

Leah could not cope with their two rigid little bodies, and, through
welling tears of weariness and exasperation, she looked blankly up and
down the dingy street for succour. If only her ally, Mr. Brennan, the
policeman on the beat, would come! But Mr. Brennan was guarding a Grand
Street crossing until such time as the last straggling child should
have safely passed the dangers of the horse-cars, and nothing came in
answer to Leah's prayer but a push-cart laden with figs and dates and
propelled by a tall man, long-coated and fur-capped. His first glance
read the tableau, and in an instant he grasped Percival, shook him
into animation, threw him through the big door, and turned to reason
with Algernon. But that rebel had already seen the error of his ways
and was meekly ascending the steps and waving a resigned adieu to his
sister. The heavy door clanged. Leah raised grateful eyes to her knight,
and the thing was done. For the rest of that day Aaron Kastrinsky sold