Carmella Commands
do a thing, she did it, or swore if she could not. If that was American, then—she summoned all the English she knew for the battle.
“Me to spik Eenglish!” she shouted. “Spik Eenglish! You learn! Damn’ soon! You bet!”
Mrs. Barrington looked hurt. These foreigners. . . . Still, there was social prestige in being at the head of Hope House.
“Miss Sargle,” she called to the fidgeting figure in the background. “Will you please form an English class for Mrs. Coletta, immediately?”
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Barrington. I’ll teach her my- self.”
Miss Sargle was rubbing her hands in the apologetic manner of a ladies’ maid caught pilfering her mistress’s cigarettes. But she beckoned to Mrs. Coletta, and the latter followed her into the superintendent’s office.
Walking with a new sense of power. She, even she, the humble Maria, had conquered by adopting what she felt to be the spirit of America—the will to go-get. For the first time since, timid and afraid, she had landed at Ellis Island, bewildered beyond words, she felt the sense of triumph. So this was what America was—you got what you demanded, if you demanded fortissimo.
She sat down in Miss Sargle’s office for her kindergarten lesson. And on the instant she resolved to tell Carmella no word of this adventure until—until she
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