Carmella Commands
could overhear. To a threat of physical punishment, she heard him exclaim, in English:
“Aw, dad’s too tired to do any licking when he gets home now.”
For answer Maria seized him by the shoulder and marched him, slightly struggling, into the bedroom which, since Carmella could remember, had been the place of family discipline.
Listening intently, Carmella wondered. For years her mother had taken no part in such scenes, leaving the whippings to Tommaso. This was a new development, together with her apparent understanding of some of Giuseppe’s English. Was it possible that there was some connection between the two phenomena?
Soon she heard her brother frantically promising to be good, and presently he emerged, sniffling, followed by his mother.
Twice that evening, after the younger children had gone to bed, Carmella spoke to her mother in English. But each time Maria told her to repeat in “the” language. She was not yet ready for the real test of her new and growing knowledge.
Carmella was mystified. Nor was this feeling less- ened as she noted that her mother was developing a new poise. It seemed that her family might be worth new study; it was becoming something more than a background for her other interests.
Twice her father and mother, evidently by agree-
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