A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [77]
Francie ran down and ran back. Johnny wrote a note saying Francie was going to live with relatives at such and such an address and wanted a transfer. He added that Neeley would continue living at home and wouldn’t require a transfer. He signed his name and underlined it authoritatively.
Tremblingly, Francie handed the note to her principal next morning. That lady read it, grunted, made out the transfer, handed her her report card and told her to go; that the school was too crowded anyhow.
Francie presented herself and documents to the principal of the new school. He shook hands with her and said he hoped she’d be happy in the new school. A monitor took her to the classroom. The teacher stopped the work and introduced Francie to the class. Francie looked out over the rows of little girls. All were shabby but most were clean. She was given a seat to herself and happily fell into the routine of the new school.
The teachers and children here were not as brutalized as in the old school. Yes, some of the children were mean but it seemed a natural child-meanness and not a campaign. Often the teachers were impatient and cross but never naggingly cruel. There was no corporal punishment either. The parents were too American, too aware of the rights granted them by their Constitution to accept injustices meekly. They could not be bulldozed and exploited as could the immigrants and the second-generation Americans.
Francie found that the different feeling in this school came mostly from the janitor. He was a ruddy white-haired man whom even the principal addressed as Mister Jenson. He had many children and grandchildren of his own, all of whom he loved dearly. He was father to all children. On rainy days when children came to school soaked, he insisted that they be sent down to the furnace room to dry out. He made them take off their wet shoes and hung their wet stockings on a line to dry. The little shabby shoes stood in a row before the furnace.
It was pleasant down in the furnace room. The walls were whitewashed and the big red-painted furnace was a comforting thing. The windows were high up in the walls. Francie liked to sit there and enjoy the warmth and watch the orange and blue flames dancing an inch above the bed of small black coals. (He left the furnace door open when the children were drying out.) On rainy days, she left earlier and walked to school slower so that she would be soaking wet and rate the privilege of drying in the furnace room.
It was unorthodox for Mr. Jenson to keep the children out of class to dry but everyone liked and respected him too much to protest. Francie heard stories around the school concerning Mr. Jenson. She heard that he had been to college and knew more than the principal did. They said he had married and when the children came, had decided that there was more money in being a school engineer than in being a schoolteacher. Whatever it was, he was liked and respected. Once Francie saw him in the principal’s office. He was in his clean striped overalls sitting there with his knees crossed and talking politics. Francie heard that the principal often came down to Mr. Jenson’s furnace room to sit and talk for a few moments while he smoked a pipeful of tobacco.
When a boy was bad, he wasn’t sent to the principal’s office for a licking; he was sent down to Mr. Jenson’s room for a talking to. Mr. Jenson never scolded a bad boy. He talked to him about his own youngest son who was a pitcher on the Brooklyn team. He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common good of all. After a talk with Mr. Jenson, the boy could be counted upon not to cause any more trouble.
At graduation, the children asked the principal to sign the first page of their autograph book out of respect to his position but they valued Mr. Jenson’s autograph more and he always got the second page to sign. The principal signed quickly in a great sprawling hand. But not Mr. Jenson. He made a ceremony out of it. He took