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Updated: May 28, 2025
Bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the police from observing another party of rioters women, assisted by husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it open, and with a great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for their progeny.
Visions and odours of her mother frying plaice and soles at worst, cod or mackerel were inwoven with her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it is probable she thought Friday was short for frying-day. With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape the tug of temptation. 'Bloomah! Where are you off to? It was the alarmed cry of a classmate.
My poor Becky never persecuted me with Banners, and she's twice the scholard you are. 'Why, she can't spell "neuralgia," said Bloomah resentfully. 'And who wants to spell a thing like that? It's bad enough to feel it. Wait till you have babies and neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how you'll spell. 'She can't spell "racked" either, put in Daniel. His mother turned on him witheringly.
The curious episode in the London Ghetto the other winter, while the epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the reporters, though in the world of the Board-schools it is a vivid memory. But even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and the Board members, have remained ignorant of the part little Bloomah Beckenstein played in it.
When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed to scamper off to school in the desperate hope of saving the afternoon attendance. The London sky was of lead, and the London pavement of mud, but her heart was aglow with hope. As she reached the familiar street a certain strangeness in its aspect struck her.
Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every side, and soon a posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to push themselves between them and the gate. A fat and genial officer worked his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action. 'Don't hurt the poor women, Bloomah pleaded. 'They think their children are being poisoned. 'I know, missie.
Don't let me see your brazen face before the Sabbath! Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way to Becky's her feet turned of themselves by long habit down the miry street in which the red-brick school-building rose in dreary importance. The sight of the great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a throb of guilt. For a moment she stood wrestling with the temptation to enter.
What can you do with such greenhorns? Why don't they stop in their own country? I've just been vaccinated myself, and it's no joke to get my arm knocked about like this! 'Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet them. The policeman laughed. A sleeveless policeman! It would destroy all the dignity and prestige of the force. 'Then I'll show them mine, said Bloomah resolutely.
It was decided to cancel the attendance for the day. Red marks, black marks all fell into equality; the very ciphers were reduced to their native nothingness. The school-week was made to end on the Thursday. Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant sisterhood. On the wall shone the Banner.
Evidently the School Board had suddenly sent down compulsory vaccinators. 'I won't die, moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 'I'm too young to die yet. 'My little lamb is dying! A woman near Bloomah, with auburn wisps showing under her black wig, wrung her hands. 'I hear her talk always, always about the red mark. Now they have given it her. She is poisoned my little apple.
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