See How They Run

Mary Elizabeth Vroman

See How They Run

A bell rang. Jane Richards squared the sheaf of records decisively in the large manila folder, placed it in the right-hand corner of her desk, and stood up. The chatter of young voices subsided, and forty-three small faces looked solemnly and curiously at the slight young figure before them. The bell stopped ringing.

I wonder if they’re as scared of me as I am of them. She smiled brightly. .

“Good morning, children, I am Miss Richards.” As if they don’t know — the door of the third-grade room had a neat new sign pasted above it with her name in bold black capitals; and anyway, a new teacher’s name is the first thing that children find out about on the first day of school. Nevertheless she wrote it for their benefit in large white letters on the blackboard.

“I hope we will all be happy working and playing together this year.” Now why does that sound so trite? “As I call the roll will you please stand, so that I may get to know you as soon as possible, and if you like to you may tell me something about yourselves, how old you are, where you live, what your parents do, and perhaps something about what you did during the summer.”

Seated, she checked the names carefully. “Booker T. Adams.”

Booker stood, gangling and stoop-shouldered: he began to recite tiredly. “My name is Booker T. Adams, I’se ten years old.” Shades of Uncle Tom! “I live on Painter’s Path.” He paused, the look he gave her was tinged with something very akin to contempt. “I didn’t do nothing in the summer,” he said deliberately.

“Thank you, Booker.” Her voice was even. “George Allen.”

Must remember to correct that stoop. .. . Where is Painter's Path? . . . How to go about correcting those speech defects? . . . Go easy, Jane, don’t antagonize them. . . . They’re clean enough, but this is the first day. . . . How can one teacher do any kind of job with a load of forty-three? . . . Thank heaven the building is modern and well built even though it is overcrowded, not like some I’ve seen — no potbellied stove.

“Sarahlene Clover Babcock.” Where do these names come from? ... Up from slavery.... How high is up. Jane smothered a sudden desire to giggle. Outside she was calm and poised and smiling. Clearly she called the names, listening with interest, making a note here and there, making no corrections — not yet.

She experienced a moment of brief inward satisfaction: I’m doing very well, this is what is expected of me . . . Orientation to Teaching . . . Miss Murray’s voice beat a distant tattoo in her memory. Miss Murray with the Junoesque figure and the moon face . . . “The ideal teacher personality is one which, combining in itself all the most desirable qualities, expresses itself with quiet assurance in its endeavor to mold the personalities of the students in the most desirable patterns.” . . . Dear dull Miss Murray.

She made mental estimates of the class. What a cross section of my people they represent, she thought. Here and there signs of evident poverty, here and there children of obviously well-to-do parents.

“My name is Rachel Veronica Smith. I am nine years old. I live at Six-oh-seven Fairview Avenue. My father is a Methodist minister. My mother is a housewife. I have two sisters and one brother. Last summer Mother and Daddy took us all to New York to visit my Aunt Jen. We saw lots of wonderful things. There are millions

and millions of people in New York. One day we went on a ferryboat all the way up the Hudson River — that’s a great big river as wide across as this town, and —”

The children listened wide-eyed. Jane listened carefully. She speaks good English. Healthy, erect, and even perhaps a little. smug. Immaculately well dressed from the smoothly braided hair, with two perky bows, to the shiny brown oxfords . . . Bless you, Rachel, I’m so glad to have you.

“—and the buildings are all very tall, some of them nearly reach the sky.”

“Haw-haw” — this from Booker, cynically.

“Well, they are too.” Rachel swung around, fire in her eyes and insistence in every line of her round, compact body.

“Ain’t no building as tall as the sky, is dere, Miz Richards?”

Crisis No. 1. Jane chose her answer carefully. As high as the sky . . . mustn’t turn this into a lesson in science . . . all in due time. “The sky is a long way out, Booker, but the buildings in New York are very tall indeed. Rachel was only trying to show you how very tall they are. In fact, the tallest building in the whole world is in New York City.”

“They call it the Empire State Building,” interrupted Rachel, heady with her new knowledge and Jane’s corroboration.

Booker wasn’t through. “You been dere, Miz Richards?”

“Yes, Booker, many times. Someday I shall tell you more about it. Maybe Rachel will help me. Is there anything you'd like to add, Rachel?”

“I would like to say that we are glad you are our new teacher, Miss Richards.” Carefully she sat down, spreading her skirt with her plump hands, her smile angelic.

Now I'll bet me a quarter her reverend father told her to say that. “Thank you, Rachel.”

The roll call continued. . . . Tanya, slight and pinched, with the toes showing through the very white sneakers, the darned and faded but clean blue dress, the gentle voice like a tinkling bell, and the beautiful sensitive face. . . . Boyd and Lloyd, identical in their starched overalls, and the slightly vacant look. . . . Marjorie Lee, all of twelve years old, the well-developed body moving rest#lessly in the childish dress, the eyes too wise, the voice too high. . . . Joe Louis, the intelligence in the brilliant black eyes gleaming above the threadbare clothes. Lives of great men all remind us — Well, I have them all . . . Frederick Douglass, Franklin Delano, Abraham Lincoln, Booker T., Joe Louis, George Washington. . . What a great burden you bear, little people, heirs to all your parents’ stillborn dreams of greatness. I must not fail you. The last name on the list... C. T. Young. Jane paused, small lines creasing her forehead. She checked the list again.

“C. T., what is your name? I only have your initials on my list.”

“Dat’s all my name, C. T. Young.”

“No, dear, I mean what does C. T. stand for? Is it Charles or Clarence?”

“No’m, jest C. T.”

“But I can’t put that in my register, dear.”

Abruptly Jane rose and went te the next room. Rather timidly she waited to speak to Miss Nelson, the second-grade teacher, who had the formidable record of having taught all of sixteen years.

Miss Nelson was large and smiling.

“May I help you, dear?”

“Yes, please. It’s about C. T.-Young. I believe you had him last year.”

“Yes, and the year before that. You'll have him two years too.”

“Oh? Well, I was wondering what name you registered him under. All the information I have is C. T. Young.”

“That’s all there is, honey. Lots of these children only have initials.”

“You mean . . . can’t something be done about it?”

“What?” Miss Nelson was still smiling, but clearly impatient.

“I... well . . . thank you.” Jane left quickly.

Back in Room 3 the children were growing restless. Deftly Jane passed out the rating tests and gave instructions. Then she called C. T. to her. He was as small as an eight-year-old, and hungry#looking, with enormous guileless eyes and a beautifully shaped head.

“How many years did you stay in the second grade, C. T.?”

“Two.”

“And in the first?”

“Two,”

“How old are you?”

“Leven.”

“When will you be twelve?”

“Nex’ month.”

And they didn’t care . . . nobody ever cared enough about one. small boy to give him a name.

“You are a very lucky little boy, C. T. Most people have to take the name somebody gave them whether they like it or not, but you can choose your very own.”

“Yeah?” The dark eyes were belligerent. “My father named me C. T. after hisself, Miz Richards, an’ dat’s my name.”

Jane felt unreasonably irritated. “How many children are there in your family, C. T.?”

“*Leven.”

“How many are there younger than you?” she asked.

“Seven.”

Very gently, “Did you have your breakfast this morning, dear?”

The small figure in the too-large trousers and the too-small shirt drew itself up to full height. “Yes’m, I had fried chicken, and rice, and coffee, and rolls, and oranges too.”

Oh, you poor darling. You poor proud lying darling. Is that what you'd like for breakfast?

She asked, “Do you like school, C. T.?”

“Yes’m,” he told her suspiciously.

She leafed through the pile of records. “Your record says you hayen’t been coming to school very regularly. Why?” __

“I dunno.”

“Did you ever bring a lunch?” ,

“No’m, I eats such a big breakfast, I doan git hungry at lunchtime.”

“Children need to eat lunch to help them grow tall and strong, C. T. So from now on you'll eat lunch in the lunchroom” — an after-thought: Perhaps it’s important to make him think I believe him — “and from now on maybe you'd better not eat such a big breakfast.”

Decisively she wrote his name at the top of what she knew to be an already too large list. “Only those in absolute necessity,” she had been told by Mr. Johnson, the kindly, harassed principal.

“We'd like to feed them all, so many are underfed, but we just don’t have the money.” Well, this was absolute necessity if she ever saw it.

“What does your father do, C. T.?”

“He work at dat big factory cross-town, he make plenty money, Miz Richards.” The record said “Unemployed.”

“Would you like to be named Charles Thomas?”

The expressive eyes darkened, but the voice was quiet. “No’m.”

“Very well.” Thoughtfully Jane opened the register; she wrote firmly C. T. Young.

October is a witching month in the Southern United States.

The richness of the golds and reds and browns of the trees forms an enchanted filigree through which the lilting voices of children at play seem to float, embodied like so many nymphs of Pan.

Jane had played a fast-and-furious game of tag with her class and now she sat quietly under the gnarled old oak, watching the tireless play, feeling the magic of the sun through the leaves warmly dappling her skin, the soft-breeze on the nape of her neck like a lover’s hands, and her own drowsy lethargy. Paul, Paul my darling . . . how long for us now? She had worshiped Paul Carlyle since they were freshmen together. On graduation day he had slipped the small circlet of diamonds on her finger.... “A teacher’s salary is small, Jane. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get work together, then in a year or so we can be married. Wait for me, darling, wait for me!”

But in a year or so Paul had gone to war, and Jane went out alone to teach... . Lansing Creek—one year .. . the leaky roof, the potbellied stove, the water from the well. . . . Mary#weather Point — two years . . . the tight-lipped spinster principal with the small, vicious soul. . . . Three hard lonely years and then she had been lucky.

The superintendent had praised her. “You have done good work, Miss — ah — Jane. This year you are to be placed at Center#town High — that is, of course, if you care to accept the position.”

Jane had caught her breath. Centertown was the largest and best equipped of all the schools in the county, only ten miles from home and Paul — for Paul had come home, older, quieter, but still Paul. He was teaching now more than a hundred miles away, but they went home every other weekend to their families and each other. . . . “Next summer you'll be Mrs. Paul Carlyle, darling. It’s hard for us to be apart so much. I guess we'll have to be for a long time till I can afford to support you. But, sweet, these little tykes need us so badly.” He had held her close, rubbing the nape of the neck under the soft curls. “We have a big job, those of us who . teach,” he had told her, “a never-ending and often thankless job, Jane, to supply the needs of these kids who lack so much.” Dear, warm, big, strong, gentle Paul.

They wrote each other long letters, sharing plans and problems.

She wrote him about C. T. “I’ve adopted him, darling. He’s so pathetic and so determined to prove that he’s not. He learns nothing at all, but I can’t let myself believe that he’s stupid, so I keep trying.”

“Miz Richards, please, ma’am.” Tanya’s beautiful amber eyes sought hers timidly. Her brown curls were tangled from playing, her cheeks a bright red under the tightly stretched olive skin. The elbows jutted awkwardly out of the sleeves of the limp cotton dress, which could not conceal the finely chiseled bones in their pitiable fleshlessness. As always when she looked at her, Jane thought, What a beautiful child! So unlike the dark, gaunt, morose mother, and the dumpy, pasty-faced father who had visited her that first week. A fairy’s changeling. You'll make a lovely angel to grace the throne of God, Tanya! Now what made me think of that?

“Please, ma’am, I’se sick.”

Gently Jane drew her down beside her. She felt the parchment skin, noted the unnaturally bright eyes. Oh, dear God, she’s burning up! “Do you hurt anywhere, Tanya?”

“My head, ma’am and I’se so tired.” Without warning she began to cry.

“How far do you live, Tanya?”

“Two miles.”

“You walk to school?”

“Yes’m.”

“Do any of your brothers have a bicycle?”

“No’m.”

“Rachel!” Bless you for always being there when I need you.

“Hurry, dear, to the office and ask Mr. Johnson please to send a big boy with a bicycle to take Tanya home. She’s sick.”

Rachel ran.

“Hush now, dear, we'll get some cool water, and then you’ be home in a little while. Did you feel sick this morning?”

“Yes’m, but Mot Dear sent me to school anyway. She said I just wanted to play hooky.”

Keep smiling, Jane. Poor, ambitious, well-meaning parents, made bitter at the seeming futility of dreaming dreams for this lovely child . . . willing her to rise above the drabness of your own meager existence . . . too angry with life to see that what she needs most is your love and care and nght now _ medical attention.

Jane bathed the child’s forehead with cool water at the foun#tain. Do the white schools have a clinic? I must ask Paul. Do they have a lounge or a couch where they can lay one wee sick head? Is there anywhere in this town free medical service for one small child . . . born black?

The boy with the bicycle came. “Take care of her now, go slowly and carefully, and take her straight home. . . . Keep the newspaper over your head,. Tanya, to keep out the sun, and tell your parents to call the doctor.” But she knew they wouldn’t because they couldn’t.

The next day Jane went to see Tanya.

“She’s sho’ nuff sick, Miz Richards,” the mother said. “She’s always been a puny child, but this time she’s took real bad, throat’s all raw, talk all out her haid las’ night. I been using a poultice and some herb brew but she ain’t got no better.”

“Have you called a doctor, Mrs. Fulton?”

“No’m, we cain’t afford it, an’ Jake, he doan believe in doctors nohow.” .

Jane waited till the tide of high bright anger welling in her heart and beating in her brain had subsided. When she spoke her voice was deceptively gentle. “Mrs. Fulton, Tanya is a very sick little girl. She is your only little girl. If you love her, I advise you to have a doctor for her, for if you don’t . . . Tanya may die.”

The wail that issued from the thin figure seemed to have no part in reality.

Jane spoke hurriedly. “Look, I’m going into town. I'll send a doctor out. Don’t worry about paying him. We can see about that later.” Impulsively she put her arms around the taut, motionless shoulders. “Don’t you worry, honey, it’s going to be all right.”

There was a kindliness in the doctor’s weather-beaten face that warmed Jane’s heart, but his voice was brusque. “You sick, girl? Well?”

“No, sir. I’m not sick.” What long sequence of events has caused even the best of you to look on even the best of us as menials?

“I am a teacher at Centertown High. There’s a little girl in my class who is very ill. Her parents are very poor. I came to see if you would please go to see her.”

He looked at her, amused.

“Of course I’ll pay the bill, Doctor,” she added hastily.

“In that case . . . well . . . where does she live?”

Jane told him. “I think it’s diphtheria, Doctor.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

Jane sat erect. Don’t be afraid, Jane! You're as good a teacher as he is a doctor, and you made an A in that course in childhood diseases. “High fever, restlessness, sore throat, headache, croupy cough, delirium. It could, of course, be tonsillitis or scarlet fever, but that cough — well, I’m only guessing, of course,” she finished lamely.

“Hmph.” The doctor’s face was expressionless, “Well, we’ll see. Have your other children been inoculated?”

“Yes, sir, Doctor, if the parents ask, please tell them that the school is paying for your services.”

This time he was wide-eyed.

The lie haunted her. She spoke to the other teachers about it the next day at recess.

“She’s really very sick, maybe you'd like to help?”

Mary Winters, the sixth-grade teacher, was the first to speak.

“Richards, I’d like to help, but I’ve got three kids of my own, and so you see how it is?”

Jane saw.

“Trouble with you, Richards, is you’re too emotional.” This from Nelson. “When you’ve taught as many years as I have, my dear, you'll learn not to bang your head against a stone wall. It may sound hardhearted to you, but one just can’t worry about one child more or less when one has nearly fifty.”

The pain in the back of her eyes grew more insistent. “I can,” she said.

“I'll help, Jane,” said Marilyn Andrews, breathless, bouncy, newlywed Marilyn.

“Here’s two bucks. It’s all I’ve got, but nothing’s plenty for me.” Her laughter pealed echoing down the hall.

“I’ve got a dollar, Richards” — this from mousy, severe, little Miss Mitchell — “though I’m not sure I agree with you.”

“Why don’t you ask the high-school faculty?” said Marilyn.

“Better still, take it up in teachers’ meeting.”

“Mr. Johnson has enough to worry about now,” snapped Nelson. Why, she’s mad, thought Jane, mad because I’m trying to give a helpless little tyke a chance to live, and because Marilyn and Mitchell helped.

The bell rang. Wordlessly Jane turned away. She watched the children troop in noisily, an ancient nursery rhyme running through her head:

Three blind mice,

three blind mice,

See how they run,

see how they run,

They all ran after

the farmer’s wife,

She cut off their tails

with a carving knife.

Did you ever see

such a sight in your life

As three blind mice?

Only this time it was forty-three mice. Jane giggled. Why, I’m hysterical, she thought in surprise. The mice thought the sweet-smelling farmer’s wife might have bread and a wee bit of cheese to offer poor blind mice; but the farmer’s wife didn’t like poor, hungry, dirty blind mice. So she cut off their tails. Then they couldn’t run any more, only wobble. What happened then? Maybe they starved, those that didn’t bleed to death. Running round in circles. Running where, little mice?

She talked to the high-school faculty, and Mr. Johnson. All together, she got eight dollars.

The following week she received a letter from the doctor:

Dear Miss Richards:

I am happy to inform you that Tanya is greatly improved, and with careful nursing will be well enough in about eight weeks to return to school. She is very frail, however, and will require spe#cial care. I have made three visits to her home. In view of the peculiar circumstances, I am donating my services. The cost of the medicines, however, amounts to the sum of fifteen dollars. I am referring this to you as you requested. What a beautiful child!

Yours sincerely,

JonatHan H. Srncrarr, MD.

P.S. She had diphtheria. :

Bless you forever and ever, Jonathan H. Sinclair, M.D. For all your long Southern heritage, “a man’s a man for a’ that . . . and a’ that!”

Her heart was light that night when she wrote to Paul. Later she made plans in the darkness. You'll be well and fat by Christmas, Tanya, and you'll be a lovely angel in my pageant. . . . I must get the children to save pennies... . We'll send you milk and oranges and eggs, and we'll make funny little get-well cards to keep you happy.

But by Christmas Tanya was dead!

The voice from the dark figure was quiet, even monotonous.

“Jake an’ me, we always work so hard, Miz Richards. We didn’t neither one have no schooling much when we was married — our folks never had much money, but we was happy. Jake, he tenant farm. I tuk in washing — we plan to save and buy a little house and farm of our own someday. Den the children come. Six boys, Miz Richards — all in a hurry. We both want the boys to finish school, mabbe go to college. We try not to keep them out to work the farm, but sometimes we have to. Then come Tanya. Just like a little yellow rose she was, Miz Richards, all pink and gold . . . and her voice like a silver bell. We think when she grow up an’ finish school she take voice lessons — be like Marian Anderson. We think mabbe by then the boys would be old enough to help. I was kinda feared for her when she get sick, but then she start to get better. She was doing so well, Miz Richards. Den it get cold, an’ the fire so hard to keep all night long, an’ eben the newspapers in the cracks doan keep the win’ out, an’ I give her all my kivvers; but one night she jest tuk to shivering an’ talking all out her haid — sat right up in bed, she did. She call your name onc’t or twice, Miz Richards, then she say, ‘Mot Dear, does Jesus love me like Miz Richards say in Sunday school?’ I say, “Yes, honey.’ She say, “Effen I die will I see Jesus?’ I say, ‘Yes, honey, but you ain’t gwine die.’ But she did, Miz Richards . . . jest smiled an’ laid down — jest smiled an’ laid down.”

It is terrible to see such hopeless resignation in such tearless eyes. . . . One little mouse stopped running. . . . You'll make a lovely angel to grace the throne of God, Tanya!

Jane did not go to the funeral. Nelson and Rogers sat in the first pew. Everyone on the faculty contributed to a beautiful wreath. Jane preferred not to think about that.

C. T. brought a lovely potted rose to her the next day. “Miz Richards, ma’am, do you think this is pretty enough to go on Tanya’s grave?”

“Where did you get it, C. T.?”

“I stole it out Miz Adams’s front yard, right out of that li’ glass house she got there. The door was open, Miz Richards, she got plenty, she won’t miss this li’] one.”

You queer little bundle of truth and lies. What do I do now? Seeing the tears blinking back in the anxious eyes, she said gently,

“Yes, C. T., the rose is nearly as beautiful as Tanya is now. She will like that very much.”

“You mean she will know I put it there, Miz Richards? She ain’t daid at all?”

“Maybe she'll know, C. T. You see, nothing that is beautiful ever dies as long as we remember it.”

So you loved Tanya, a little mouse? The memory of her beauty is yours to keep now forever and always, my darling. Those things money can’t buy. They've all been trying, but your tail isn’t off yet, is it, brat? Not by a long shot. Suddenly she laughed aloud.

He looked at her wonderingly. “What you laughing at, Miz Richards?”

“I’m laughing because I’m happy, C. T.,” and she hugged him.

Christmas with its pageantry and splendor came and went. Back from the holidays, Jane had an oral English lesson.

“We'll take this period to let you tell about your holidays, children.”

On the weekends that Jane stayed in Centertown she visited different churches, and taught in the Sunday schools when she was asked. She had tried to impress on the children the reasons for giving at Christmastime. In class they had talked about things they could make for gifts, and ways they could save money to buy them.

Now she stood by the window, listening attentively, reaping the fruits of her labors.

“I got a bicycle and a catcher’s mitt.”

“We all went to a party and had ice cream and cake.”

“I got —”

“I got —”

“I got —”

Score one goose egg for Jane. She was suddenly very tired. “It’s your turn, C. T.” Dear God, please don’t let him lie too much. He tears my heart. The children never laugh. It’s funny how polite they are to C. T. even when they know he’s lying. Even that day when Boyd and Lloyd told how they had seen him take food out of the garbage cans in front of the restaurant, and he said he was taking it to some poor hungry children, they didn’t laugh. Some#times children have a great deal more insight than grownups.

C. T. was talking. “I didn’t get nothin’ for Christmas, because Mamma was sick, but I worked all that week before for Mr. Bondel what owns the store on Main Street. I ran errands an’ swep’ up an’ he give me three dollars, and so I bought Mamma a real pretty handkerchief an’ a comb, an’ I bought my father a tie pin, paid a big ole fifty cents for it too . . . an’ I bought my sisters an’ brothers some candy an’ gum an’ I bought me this whistle. Course I got what you give us, Miz Richards” (she had given each a small gift) “an’ Mamma’s white lady give us a whole crate of oranges, an’ Miz Smith what live nex’ door give me a pair of socks.

Mamma she was so happy she made a cake with eggs an’ butter an’ everything; an’ then we ate it an’ had a good time.”

Rachel spoke wonderingly. “Didn’t Santa Claus bring you anything at all?”

C. T. was the epitome of scorn. “Ain’t no Santa Claus,” he said and sat down.

Jane quelled the age-old third-grade controversy absently, for her heart was singing. C. T. . . . C. T., son of my own heart, you are the bright new hope of a doubtful world, and the gay new song of a race unconquered. Of them all — Sarahlene, sole heir to the charming stucco home on the hill, all fitted for gracious living; - George, whose father is a contractor; Rachel, the minister’s daugh#ter; Angela, who has just inherited ten thousand dollars — of all of them who got, you, my dirty little vagabond, who have never owned a coat in your life, because you say you don’t get cold; you, out of your nothing, found something to give, and in the dignity of giving found that it was not so important to receive... . Christ Child, look down in blessing on one small child made in Your image and born black!

Jane had problems. Sometimes it was difficult to maintain discipline with forty-two children. Busy as she kept them, there were always some not busy enough. There was the conference with Mr. Johnson.

“Miss Richards, you are doing fine work here, but sometimes your room is a little . . . well — ah — well, to say the least, noisy. You are new here, but we have always maintained a record of having fine discipline here at this school. People have said that it used to be hard to tell whether or not there were children in the building. We have always been proud of that. Now take Miss Nelson. She is an excellent disciplinarian.” He smiled. “Maybe if you ask her she will give you her secret. Do not be too proud to accept help from anyone who can give it, Miss Richards.”

“No, sir, thank you, sir, I'll do my best to improve, sir.”

"Ah, you dear, well-meaning, shortsighted, round, busy little man. Why are you not more concerned about how much the children have grown and learned in these past four months than you are about how much noise they make? I know Miss Nelson’s secret. Spare not the rod and spoil not the child. Is that what you want me to do? Para#lyze these kids with fear so that they will be afraid to move? afraid to question? afraid to grow? Why is it so fine for people not to know there are children in the building? Wasn’t the building built for children?"

In her room Jane locked the door against the sound of the playing children, put her head on the desk, and cried.

Jane acceded to tradition and administered one whipping docilely enough, as though used to it; but the sneer in his eyes that had almost gone returned to haunt them. Jane’s heart misgave her. From now on I positively refuse to impose my will on any of these poor children by reason of my greater strength. So she had

abandoned the rod in favor of any other means she could find.

They did not always work.

There was a never-ending drive for funds. Jane had a passion for perfection. Plays, dances, concerts, bazaars, suppers, parties followed one on another in staggering succession.

“Look here, Richards,” Nelson told her one day, “it’s true that we need a new piano, and that science equipment, but, honey, these drives in a colored school are like the poor: with us always. It doesn’t make too much difference if Suzy forgets her lines, or if the ice cream is a little lumpy. Cooperation is fine, but the way you tear into things you won’t last long.”

“For once in her life Nelson’s right, Jane,” Elise told her later. “I can understand how intense you are because I used to be like that; but, pet, Negro teachers have always had to work harder than any others and till recently have always got paid less, so for our own health’s sake we have to let up wherever possible. Believe me, honey, if you don’t learn to take it easy, you’re going to get sick.”

Jane did. Measles!

“Oh, no,” she wailed, “not in my old age!” But she was glad of the rest. Lying in her own bed at home, she realized how very tired she was.

Paul came to see her that weekend and sat by her bed, and read aloud to her the old classic poems they both loved so well. They listened to their favorite radio programs. Paul’s presence was warm and comforting. Jane was reluctant to go back to work.

What to do about C. T. was a question that daily loomed larger in Jane’s consciousness. Watching Joe Louis’s brilliant develop#ment was a thing of joy, and Jane was hard pressed to find enough outlets for his amazing abilities. Jeanette Allen was running a close second, and even Booker, so long a problem, was beginning to grasp fundamentals, but C. T. remained static.

“I always stays two years in a grade, Miz Richards,” he told her blandly. “I does better the second year.

“I don’t keer.” His voice had been cheerful. Maybe he really is slow, Jane thought. But one day something happened to make her change her mind.

C. T. was possessed of an unusually strong tendency to protect those he considered to be poor or weak. He took little Johnny Armstrong, who sat beside him in class, under his wing. Johnny was nearsighted and nondescript, his one outstanding feature being his hero-worship of C. T. Johnny was a plodder. Hard as he tried, he made slow progress at best.

The struggle with multiplication tables was a difficult one, in spite of all the little games Jane devised to make them easier for the children. On this particular day there was the uneven hum of little voices trying to memorize. Johnny and C. T. were having a whispered conversation about snakes.

Clearly Jane heard C. T.’s elaboration. “Man, my father caught a moccasin long as that blackboard, I guess, an’ I held him while he was live right back of his ugly head — so.”

Swiftly Jane crossed the room. “C. T. and Johnny, you are supposed to be learning your tables. The period is nearly up and you haven’t even begun to study. Furthermore, in more than five months you haven’t even learned the two-times table. Now you will both stay in at the first recess to learn it, and every day after this until you do.”

Maybe I should make up some bres about snakes, Jane mused, but they’d be too ridiculous. . . . Two nests of four snakes — Oh, well, I’ll see how they do at recess. Her heart smote her at the sight of the two little figures at their desks, listening wistfully to the sound of the children at play, but she busied herself and pretended not to notice them. Then she heard C. T.’s voice:

“Lissen, man, these tables is easy if you really want to lear them. Now see here. Two times one is two. Two times two is four. Two times three is six. If you forgit, all you got to do is add two like she said.”

“Sho’ nuff, man?”

“Sho’. Say them with me . . . two times one—” Obediently

Johnny began to recite. Five minutes later they came to her.

“We’s ready, Miz Richards.”

“Very well. Johnny, you may begin.”

“Two times one is two. Two times two is four. Two times three is. . Two times three is —

“Six,” prompted C. T.

In sweat and pain, Johnny managed to stumble through the two-times table with C. T.’s help.

“That’s very poor, Johnny, but you may go for today. Tomorrow

I shall expect you to have it letter perfect. Now it’s your turn, Guie."

C. T.’s performance was a fair rival to Joe Louis’s. Suspiciously she took him through in random order.

“Two times nine?”

“Eighteen.”

“Two times four?”

“Eight.”

“Two times seven?”

“Fourteen.”

“C. T., you could have done this long ago. Why didn’t you?” .

“I dunno. . . . May I go to play now, Miz Richard?"

“Yes, C. T. Now learn your three-times table for me tomorrow.” But he didn’t, not that day or the day after that or the day after that. . . . Why doesn’t he? Is it that he doesn’t want to? Maybe if I were as ragged and deprived as he I wouldn’t want to learn either.

Jane took C. T. to town and bought him a shirt, a sweater, a pair of dungarees, some underwear, a pair of shoes and a pair of socks, Then she sent him to the barber to get his hair cut. She gave him the money so he could pay for the articles himself and figure up the change. She instructed him to take a bath before putting on his new clothes, and told him not to tell anyone but his parents that she had bought them.

The next morning the class was in a dither.

“You seen C, T.?”

“Oh, boy, ain’t he sharp!”

“C. T., where'd you get them new clothes?”

“Oh, man, I can wear new clothes any time I feel like it, but I can’t be bothered with being a fancypants all the time like you guys.” C. T. strutted in new confidence, but his work didn’t improve.

Spring came in its virginal green gladness and the children chafed for the out-of-doors. Jane took them out as much as possible on nature studies and excursions.

C. T. was growing more and more mischievous, and his influence began to spread throughout the class. Daily his droll wit became more and more edged with impudence. Jane was at her wit’s end.

“You let that child get away with too much, Richards,” Nelson told her. “What he needs is a good hiding.”

One day Jane kept certain of the class in at the first recess to do neglected homework, C. T. among them. She left the room briefly. When she returned C. T. was gone.

“Where is C. T.?” she asked.

“He went out to play, Miz Richards. He said couldn’t no ole teacher keep him in when he didn’t want to stay.”

Out on the playground C. T. was standing in a swing gently swaying to and fro, surrounded by a group of admiring youngsters. He was holding forth.

“I gets tired of stayin’ in all the time. She doan pick on nobody but me, an’ today I put my foot down. ‘From now on,’ I say, ‘I ain’t never goin’ to stay in, Miz Richards.’ Then I walks out.” He was enjoying himself immensely. Then he saw her.

“You will come with me, C. T.” She was quite calm except for the telltale veins throbbing in her forehead.

“I ain’t comin’.” The sudden fright in his eyes was veiled quickly by a nonchalant belligerence. He rocked the swing gently.

She repeated, “Come with me, C. T.”

The children watched breathlessly.

“I done told you I ain’t comin’, Miz Richards.” His voice waspatient as though explaining to a child. “I ain’t . . . comin’... wait for what? damn!"

Jane moved quickly, wrenching the small but surprisingly strong figure from the swing. Then she bore him bodily, kicking and screaming, to the building.

The children relaxed, and began to giggle. “Oh boy! Is he goin’ to catch it!” they told one another.

Panting, she held him, still struggling, by the scruff of his collar before the group of teachers gathered in Marilyn’s room. “All right, now you tell me what to do with him!” she demanded. “I’ve tried everything.” The tears were close behind her eyes.

“What'd he do?” Nelson asked.

Briefly she told them.

“Have you talked to his parents?”

“Three times I’ve had conferences with them. They say to beat him.”

“That, my friend, is what you ought to do. Now he never acted like that with me. If you'll let me handle him, I'll show you how to put a brat like that in his place.”

“Go ahead,” Jane said wearily.

Nelson left the room, and returned with a narrow but sturdy leather thong. “Now, C. T.” — she was smiling, tapping the strap in her open left palm — “go to your room and do what Miss . Richards told you to.”

“I ain’t gonna, an’ you can’t make me.” He sat down with absurd dignity at a desk.

Still smiling, Miss Nelson stood over him. The strap descended without warning across the bony shoulders in the thin shirt. The whip became a dancing demon, a thing possessed, bearing no relation to the hand that held it. The shrieks grew louder. Jane closed her eyes against the blurred fury of a singing lash, a small boy’s terror and a smiling face.

Miss Nelson was not tired. “Well, C. T.?”

"I won’t, Yer can kill me but I won’t!”

The sounds began again. Red welts began to show across the small arms and through the clinging sweat-drenched shirt. “Now will you go to your room?”

Sobbing and conquered, C. T. went. The seated children stared curiously at the little procession. Jane dismissed them. In his seat C. T. found pencil and paper.

“What's he supposed to do, Richards?” Jane told her.

“All right, now write!”

C. T. stared at Nelson through swollen lids, a curious smile

curving his lips. Jane knew suddenly that come hell or high water,

C. T. would not write. I mustn’t interfere. Please, God, don’t let her hurt him too badly. Where have I failed so miserably? . .

Forgive us our trespasses. The singing whip and the shrieks became a symphony from hell. Suddenly Jane hated the smiling face with an almost unbearable hatred. She spoke, her voice like cold steel.

“That’s enough, Nelson.”

The noise stopped.

“He’s in no condition to write now anyway.”

C. T. stood up. “I hate you. I hate you all. You’re mean and I hate you.” Then he ran. No one followed him. Run, little mouse!

They avoided each other’s eyes.

“Well, there you are,” Nelson said as she walked away. Jane never found out what she meant by that.

The next day C. T. did not come to school. The day after that he brought Jane the fatal homework, neatly and painstakingly done, and a bunch of wild flowers. Before the bell rang, the children surrounded him. He was beaming.

“Did you tell yer folks you got a whipping, C. T.?”

“Naw! I’d ’a’ only got another.”

“Where were you yesterday?”

“Went fishin’. Caught me six cats long as your haid, Sambo.”

Jane buried her face in the sweet-smelling flowers. Oh, my brat, my wonderful resilient brat. They'll never get your tail, will they?

It was seven weeks till the end of term, when C. T. brought Jane a model wooden boat.

Jane stared at it. “Did you make this? It’s beautiful, C. T.”

“Oh, I make them all the time . . . an’ airplanes an’ houses too. I do’em in my spare time,” he finished airily.

“Where do you get the models, C. T.?” she asked.

“C. T. copies them from pictures in the magazine.”

Right under my nose . . . right there all the time, she thought wonderingly.

“C. T., would you like to build things when you grow up? Real houses and ships and planes?”

“Reckon I could, Miz Richards,” he said confidently.

The excitement was growing in her.

“Look, C. T. You aren’t going to do any lessons at all for the rest of the year. You're going to build ships and houses and airplanes and anything else you want to.”

“I am, huh?” He grinned. “Well, I guess I wasn’t goin’ to get promoted nohow.”

“Of course if you want to build them the way they really are, you might have to do a little measuring, and maybe learn to spell the names of the parts you want to order. All the best contractors have to know things like that, you know.”

“Say, I’m gonna have real fun, huh? I always said lessons wussent no good nohow. Pop say too much study eats out yer brains anyway.”

The days went by. Jane ran a race with time. The instructions from the model companies arrived. Jane burned the midnight oil planning each day’s work.

Learn to spell the following words: ship, sail, steamer — boat, anchor, airplane wing, fly.

Write a letter to the lumber company, ordering some lumber. The floor of our model house is ten inches long. Multiply the length by the width and you'll find the area of the floor in square inches. Read the story of Columbus and his voyages.

Our plane arrives in Paris in twenty-eight hours. Paris is the capital city of a country named France across the Atlantic Ocean. Long ago sailors told time by the sun and the stars. Now, the earth goes around the sun —. Work and pray, Jane, work and pray!

C. T. learned, Some things vicariously, some things directly. When he found that he needed multiplication to plan his models to scale, he learned to multiply. In three weeks he had mastered simple division.

Jane bought beautifully illustrated stories about ships and planes. He learned to read.

He wrote for and received his own materials.

Jane exulted.

The last day! Forty-two faces waiting anxiously for report cards.

Jane spoke to them briefly, praising them collectively, and admonishing them to obey the safety rules during the holidays. Then she passed out the report cards.

As she smiled at each childish face, she thought, I’ve been wrong. The long arm of circumstance, environment and heredity is the farmer’s wife that seeks to mow you down, and all of us who touch your lives are in some way responsible for how successful she is. But you aren’t mice, my darlings. Mice are hated, hunted pests. You are normal, lovable children. The knife of the farmer’s wife is, double-edged for you, because you are Negro children, born mostly in poverty. But you are wonderful children, nevertheless, for you wear the bright protective cloak of laughter, the strong shield of courage, and the intelligence of children everywhere. Some few of you may indeed become as the mice — but most of you shall find your way to stand fine and tall in the annals of man. There’s a bright new tomorrow ahead. For every one of us whose job it is to help you grow that is insensitive and unworthy, there are hundreds who daily work that you may grow straight and whole. If it were not so, our world could not long endure.

She handed C. T. his card.

“Thank you, ma’m.”

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

He opened it dutifully. When he looked up his eyes were wide with disbelief. “You didn’t make no mistake?”

“No mistake, C. T. You’re promoted. You’ve caught up enough to go to the fourth grade next year.”

She dismissed the children. They were a swarm of bees released from a hive. “ ’By, Miss Richards.” . . . “Happy holidays, Miss Richards.”

C. T was the last to go.

“Well, C. T.?”

“Miz Richards, you remember what you said about a name being important?”

“Yes, Cris..."

“Well, I talked to Mamma, and she said if I wanted a name it would be all right, and she’d go to the courthouse about it.”

“What name have you chosen, C. T.?” she asked.

“Christopher Turner Young.”

“That’s a nice name, Christopher,” she said gravely.

“Sho’ nuff, Miz Richards?”

“Sure enough, C. T.”

“Miz Richards, you know what?”

“What, dear?”

“I love you.”

She kissed him swiftly before he ran to catch his classmates.

She stood at the window and watched the running, skipping figures, followed by the bold mimic shadows. I’m coming home, Paul. I’m leaving my forty-two children, and Tanya there on the hill. My work with them is finished now. The laughter bubbled up in her throat. But Paul, oh Paul. See how they run.