Carmella Commands
had signed it. Her absence of the afternoon was fully covered.
Mr. Carroll, the principal, often sent word to the homes of his pupils that his Carmellas and Salvatores and Marys and Angelos must not be kept out of school too often. And as often as he sent them he knew they would do no good.
The chief business of the oldest child in the families from which his pupils came was to be interpreter. What he and his staff could teach them between times was clear gain for America. Perhaps! Mr. Carroll hoped so.
Rarely, indeed, did he report cases to the Attendance Department, which within a year or so had succeeded the old-fashioned truant officer. He knew how easily an unwilling child could refuse to learn. And, as he talked the problem over with Mrs. Carroll in the evenings, he wondered if they did not learn more as masterful interpreters than as submissive pupils.
Mr. Carroll had occupied himself more with the humanity that each term spread before him than with winning a Ph.D. based on the number of commas in a classic.
Carmella handed the excuse to Miss Kelly.
Miss Kelly scolded her and sent her to the principal. Carmella was growing entirely too free-and-easy in her absences.
“I want you to see Mr. Carroll about this,” said Miss Kelly.
[118]
