Israel Zangwill

“ Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life. At night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her share of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. Beckenstein's language: 'Don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor fry, nor nothing.'
Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it was ten minutes to nine before Bloomah could sit down to her own breakfast, and then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a terrible hindrance ”

“ The police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack upon doors and windows, and Bloomah was hastily set down in the seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.
The large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children, police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. But there was no riot. The law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. ”

“ There's nobody but her to see to things, for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a weddin' last night, and comin' home at four in the mornin', and pourin' cats and dogs. If you go to our house, please, teacher, you'll see my Benjy in bed; he's given up his day's work; he must have his sleep; he earns three pounds a week as head cutter at S. Cohn's—he can afford to be in bed, thank God! So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein! ”

“ If she were thus hauled off ere she had received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance would be cancelled.
The class was all in confusion. 'Fold arms!' cried the teacher sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. Bloomah obeyed instinctively with the rest.
'Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you out by your plait?'
'Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn't come here like that!' said the teacher in her most ladylike accents.
'Tell Bloomah that,' answered Mrs. Beckenstein, unimpressed. 'She's come here by runnin' away from home. ”

“ The School Tyrants are plotting to inject filthy vaccine into their innocent veins. Keep them away rather than let them be poisoned to enrich the doctors.'
There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah. What wonder if the refugees from lands of persecution—lands in which anything might happen—believed they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if the rumour that executioners with instruments had entered the school-buildings had run like wildfire through the quarter, enflaming Oriental imagination to semi-madness. ”

“ Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into the competition. An epidemic of small-pox broke out in the East End, with its haphazard effects upon the varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals and prizes, all was luck and lottery. ”

“ To gain it, she must be in her place at nine o'clock to the stroke. A moment after nine, and only the black mark was attainable. Twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the absent was sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording Angel, who in Bloomah's case was a pale pupil-teacher with eyeglasses.
But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the school horizon, intensifying Bloomah's anxiety and her mother's grievance.
'I don't see nothing,' Mrs. Beckenstein iterated; 'no prize, no medal—nothing but a red mark and a banner.'
The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not unfurled itself in Mrs. ”