"Danced," the Angel declared, daintily devoting herself to her portion of the peach, "her danced and-her danced."
This earthly vocation seemed to fail to appeal to Joey's imagination. "Nothin' else?" he demanded anxiously. "Didn't yer never do nothin' else?"
But the Angel had fallen to poking the green contents of the gutter with a stick, and seemed to find the present more fascinating to contemplate than the past.
"Didn't yer never go nowhere?" persisted Joey.
"Her went to school," the Angel admitted, or so it sounded to Joey.
"What 'ud yer do at school?" he inquired.
"Danced," was the Angel's unmistakable announcement.
Joey looked disgusted, but soon recovered and fell to revolving a new idea in his fertile young brain.
"I know where there is a school," he remarked. "I've never went, but I hung on ter the window-sill an' looked in, an' if yer went ter school up there, yer oughter be goin' down here, see!" And forthwith Joey arose.
Amiable as her small ladyship usually was, on this occasion, seeing determination written on Joey's small countenance, she rebelled. "Angel yants to stay here," the young lady declared, continuing to poke at the contents of the gutter.
"I don't wanter make her cry," argued Joey wisely, then cast about in his mind for an inducement. "They have parties to that school, they do," finally he observed, "fer I seen 'em settin' 'round tables an' eatin' one day."
The guileless infant rose to the bait at once, and dropped her stick and slipped her confiding hand in Joey's. "Angel likes to have parties," she declared, and thus lured on, she forthwith followed Joey down the street.
* * * * *
"Some one to see me," repeated pretty Miss Stannard, of the Darcy College Settlement's Free Kindergarten, and laying down her blocks she went to the door.
On the steps outside the entrance stood a small, chubby-cheeked boy smiling up out of knowing brown eyes from beneath a soldier's cap many sizes too large for him, while behind him stood a slender, graceful child with wonderful shining hair, and eyes equally as smiling.
The small boy treated the tall, pretty young lady to a most confiding nod and a wink. "I've brought her ter school," he remarked.
"Oh, have you?" returned the young lady laughing, "then I'd better invite you in, I suppose," and she led the way toward the entry-room where hung some dozens of shabby hats and bonnets. "And what is your name?" she inquired.
"Her name is Angel, it is," responded the little fellow briskly, with emphasis on the pronoun, as if to let the young lady understand at once that her interest need extend no further than to the prospective pupil.
"Didn't a know I are Angel?" queried the smiling cherub with her accustomed egotistical surprise.
"And what is your other name?" questioned Miss Stannard smiling.
"She ain't got no more," returned the escort succinctly.
"And what is yours?"
"Mine-oh, I'm just the Major, I am," with off-hand loftiness.
"Indeed? And where do you live, Major?"
"Fourth Reg'ment Arm'ry," responded the Major glibly.
"And the little girl,-Angel-you said-"
The Major looked somewhat surprised, "They come from Heaven,-Angels do, yer know," he remarked, staring a little at the tall young lady's want of such knowledge.
"Yes," responded the pretty lady gently, "but where is she living now?"
"Round by me," said the small boy briefly, showing some restlessness.
"With her father and mother?"
The Major, staring again, shook his head, and poor Miss Stannard, despairing, of learning anything definite from this source, asked if he would take her there after Kindergarten, and began to untie the little girl's cap.
Evidently gratified at this attention to his charge, the Major said that he would, and followed the two into the large, sunny room adjoining. "The children are just going on the circle," said the pretty young lady, "won't you take my other hand and go too."
The Major drew back hastily. "She's come ter school," he declared indicating the Angel, "there ain't no school in it fer me. I'm a sojer, I am."
"Then have a chair, sir, and watch us," said the young lady, with amused eyes, as she brought out a little red chair with polite hospitality.
The young gentleman graciously accepting it, the Angel was forthwith borne away to join the circle of children about the ring, and to Miss Stannard's surprise, with no more ado, joined in the game like one familiar with it all, waving her small hands, singing gaily and, when her turn arrived, flitting gaily about the circle until the sash strings of her little faded dress sailed straight out behind her.
And the game at an end, without waiting for direction or guidance, the newcomer marched with the other children about the big room and took her place with them at one of the tables spread with entrancing green and yellow papers. And here, absorbed in directing the work at her own table, and her two assistant teachers equally absorbed at theirs, Miss Stannard was presently aroused by a nudge from 'Tildy Peggins, the freckle-faced young person employed in a capacity of janitress and nursery maid.
"Look a-yonder to that young willain, Miss Ruth," urged 'Tildy, whose sentiments regarding the infant populace refused, despite all the efforts of her employers, to be tempered by Kindergarten views.
Miss Stannard looked up hastily, and so did the twenty pairs of eyes about her table.
From the depths of one pocket the Major had produced a cigarette, and from the mixed contents of another he had extracted a match, and as the twenty pairs of eyes fell on him, a fascinating curl of blue smoke was just issuing from his lips.
'Tildy Peggins folded her arms on her flat chest and gave vent to a groan. Already, with her gloomy views on Kindergarten regeneration versus innate depravity, she foresaw the contamination of every half-subjugated small masculine in the room.
Miss Stannard, with a shake of her head at 'Tildy, coughed slightly. Instantly the eyes of the school left the Major and fixed themselves expectantly on her pretty face.
"I thought you wanted to be a soldier, Major," she observed, addressing the small gentleman.
"I is goin' to be," returned that unabashed gentleman, calmly sticking a thumb in his belt, and in so doing pushing his jacket aside, so as to further expose the military trappings about his round little person, "I's a-goin' to be a sojer in the Fourth Regiment."
"No, indeed," said Miss Ruth, "the members of the Fourth Regiment are gentlemen, and a gentleman would never have smoked in here without asking if he might."
The Major looked somewhat moved out of his usual imperturbability. The curl of offending smoke ceased.
"I know a soldier," Miss Ruth went on calmly, "and what is more, he is a member of the Fourth Regiment, but he never would have done such a thing as you are doing."
The cigarette trembled in the Major's irresolute fingers.
"And even if you had asked first," the steady voice went on, "I would have said no, for such a thing as smoking is never allowed in this room."
The Major's irresolute brown eyes met Miss Stannard's resolute brown ones. Then the cigarette went out the open window behind him and the work at the tables went on.
Presently Miss Ruth looked up again. "Won't you come," she said pleasantly, touching a pile of the gay papers. "Are you not tired?"
The Major shook his head decidedly. "No, he would not," and finding a chip among the apparently inexhaustible stores of his pockets, he next produced a knife boasting an inch of blade and went to whittling upon 'Tildy's immaculate floor.
Miss Ruth saw it all, and presently saw the chip fall to the floor and the round head begin to nod. Then, with 'Tildy Peggins' gloomy and disapproving eye upon her at this act of overture, she crossed the room. "Major," said Miss Ruth, just a little plaintively, perhaps, "do you suppose you could do something for me?"
The Major was wide awake on the instant.
"These papers," explained Miss Ruth, while 'Tildy from her work of washing windows, shook her disapproving head, "put all like this in a pile on the table here, and all like this over here, and this color,-here," and before Miss Stannard had gotten over to her table again, the Major was deep in the seductive fascinations of Kindergarten.