black shawl and a heavier black wig, Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky stood
beaming and bobbing in the hall.

"I likes I should Sadie Gonorowsky's teacher see," she began, in the
peculiar English of the adult population of the East Side. Mrs.
Gonorowsky could neither use nor understand her young daughter's copious
invective. Upon being assured that the diminutive form before her was
indeed clothed with authority, she announced:

"Comes a letter I should by the school come. I was Sadie's mamma."
Here she drew from the inner recesses of the black shawl a bundle
which, being placed in a perpendicular position, proved to be the most
recent addition to the Gonorowsky household. She smoothed it with a
work-worn but tender hand, and repeated in a saddened voice: "Yes,
ma'am, I was her mamma und she lays now on the bed."

The increasing sadness of Mrs. Gonorowsky's announcement and its
sinister phraseology startled Teacher. "Not dead!" she cried. "Oh,
surely not dead!"

"Sure not," was the indignant response. "She's got such a sickness she
must lay on the bed, und comes the doctor. Sadie's papa holds much on
that child, Miss Teacher, und all times he has a worry over her. Me
too. She comes by the school tomorrow maybe, und I ask you by a favour
you should do me the kindness to look on her. So she feel again sick
she should better on the house come. She say, 'Oh, mamma, I got a
lovely teacher; I likes to look on her the while she has such a light
face.'"

Having thus diplomatically led up to a question, Mrs. Gonorowsky with