Carmella Commands
had for a friend a friend of Mrs. Barrington’s. . . . That was slightly different.
After the bail had been arranged, Carmella went to Nicolo and vented her wrath:
“Now, you dirty rat, take your mother home and take care of her. If you don’t behave decent for the next week, I’ll send you to jail. I’ll come down and be a witness against you. And I happen to know the Judge. You rotten little yellow thief!”
Nicolo, perhaps for the first time in his life, was frightened.
“Come on, madre, let’s go home,” he said. “Thanks for bailing me.”
With a smile of utter happiness and faith and love —a smile that made Carmella want to cry for the pathos of it—Mrs. Pieri took her son’s arm and walked proudly out of the courtroom. He had been let off. That was all she understood of the proceedings.
Carmella reached her home a little before she would have had she gone to school.
“Where have you been?” asked Maria.
“Helping Mrs. Pieri help Nicolo out of trouble.”
“And you have not been to school? And you did not come home to ask? I shall tell your father.”
A dozen flaming answers flashed to Carmella’s tongue. She was moved to defy Maria, but suddenly the picture of the courtroom and of Mrs. Pieri’s anguish the night before blurred through her anger. No! Not for her was it to break a mother’s heart.
[229]
