In the last two or three years the children's librarian has herself gone after each book long overdue,and with each visit she has seized the opportunity not only to recover the book,but to become acquainted with the mother and to gain her often reluctant confidence.Most of the readers live in tenements,many of which open into one common yard.The appearance of the library assistant usually causes much commotion,and she is received often not only by the mother of the negligent child but also the mothers of several other children as well--and,the center of a friendly group,she holds conversation with them.By this time the library assistant is well known in the neighborhood,and unlike the collector and the curious social uplifter who are often treated with sullenness and defiance,she receives every consideration and assistance.Now at Yom Kipper,Rosh Hashana,Pasach and other holidays,we are invited to break matzos and eat rare native dishes with the families of the children.We find the home visit invaluable.The Jewish,the Italian,and even the Polish mother gains confidence in us,tells us all the family details--and feels finally that we are fit persons to whom she may entrust her children.
Probably our most attractive-looking child is the Italian,a swarthy-skinned little creature,with softly curved cheeks,liquid brown eyes and seraphic expression--that seraphic expression which is so convincing and withal so misleading.Child of the sun that he is,his greatest ambition in life is to lie undisturbed in the heat of the day and so be content.He has learned to take nothing seriously,the word "responsibility"has no meaning for him.Nor has the word "truth."With his vivid imagination he handles it with the lightest manner in the world,he adds,he expands,he takes away in the most sincere fashion,looking at you all the while with babyish innocence.He is bewildering!His large brown eyes are veritable symbols of truth;to doubt him fills you with shame.I say he is bewildering;never so much so as when,for no apparent reason,he changes his tactics,and with the same sweet confidence absolutely reverses his former statements.What can we do with him?There seems to be no appeal we can make.He swears by the Madonna!He raises his eyes to Heaven,and when he finally makes his near-true statement,he is filled with such confessional fervor that to reward him seems to be the only logical course left.He is certainly a child of nature,but of a nature so quixotic that we are non-plussed.
To many of our dark-skinned little friends "Home"originally was the little island across from the toe of Italy.These are,Ifear,somewhat scorned by the ones whose homes nestled within the confines of the boot itself.We know how many refugees fled to that little spot in the water,and that dark indeed have been the careers of some of them.Whether the hunted feeling of their fathers of generations back still lurks in these young Sicilians,I do not know,but certainly their first impulse is one of defense.At the simplest question there appears suddenly,even in the smallest child,the defiant flash of the dark eyes and the sullen setting of the mouth.The question--what does your father do?--or,what is your mother's name?--arouses their ever-smoldering suspicion,and more than likely their quick rejoinder will be--"What's it to you?"When we explain impersonally that it is very much to us if they are to read our books,and that after all to reveal their mother's name will be no very damaging admission,the cloud blows over and there is no more trace of the little storm when they indifferently give us all the details we wish.So sudden are their changes and moods,so violent their little outbursts,that we must needs be on the qui vive in our dealings with them.But yet they are so lovable that we can never be vexed with them for long.
