Again the elfin face and the wiry pompadour leaned round the
door-jamb--"One more pupil, letty,--dthe girl's modther."
But she was not a pupil, of course, and she had only come in response
to the heart promptings of motherhood, white, black, or brown, to talk
about her offspring to the strange woman who was to usurp a mother's
place with her so many hours of each day. She was quite as voluble
as American mothers are, and her daughter was quite embarrassed by
her volubility. The child sat stealing frightened glances at me and
resentful ones at her mother.
Half an hour later, three more girls came in, and they continued
to drop in during the rest of the morning till I had forty-five
enrolled. Some of them were accompanied by their dogs, which curled
up under the benches without disturbance. Several nursemaids also
happened along to give their charges a peep at the American school,
and a crowd of citizens peered in at doors and windows and made
audible remarks about the new institution.
Within a few days the enrolment ran up to one hundred and
forty-nine. As this was too large a body to be handled by me alone,
the teacher of Spanish days was brought back to the school, pending the
arrival of more teachers from the States. She was a plump, middle-aged
body who had a little--a very little--English, but whose ideas of
discipline, recitation, and study were too well fixed to permit of
accommodation to our methods.
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