Do most
principals run night schools too?"
"A good many of them do."
"Isn't it taxing your strength?" he asked.
"Don't you have to tax your strength," his daughter replied good humoredly,
"to really accomplish anything? Don't you have to risk yourself in order to
really live these days? Suppose you come down to-morrow night. We won't go
to the school, for I doubt if the clubs and classes would interest you very
much. I'll take you through the neighborhood."
* * * * *
They went down the following evening. The night was warm and humid, and
through the narrow tenement streets there poured a teeming mass of life.
People by the thousands passed, bareheaded, men in shirt sleeves, their
faces glistening with sweat. Animal odors filled the air. The torches on
the pushcarts threw flaring lights and shadows, the peddlers shouted
hoarsely, the tradesmen in the booths and stalls joined in with cries,
shrill peals of mirth. The mass swept onward, talking, talking, and its
voice was a guttural roar. Small boys and girls with piercing yells kept
darting under elbows, old women dozed on doorsteps, babies screamed on
every side. Mothers leaned out of windows, and by their faces you could see
that they were screaming angrily for children to come up to bed. But you
could not hear their cries. Here around a hurdy gurdy gravely danced some
little girls. A tense young Jew, dark faced and thin, was shouting from a
wagon that all men and women must be free and own the factories and mills.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113