Carmella Commands
church, Miss Kelly’s instinct was to connect the two. Once she yielded to her impulse.
“Carmella, come here!” she commanded, at a moment when Carmella seemed the only well-behaved child in the room.
The surprised Carmella went forward.
“Go and stand in the corner!” said Miss Kelly.
“But, Miss Kelly⸺” began the victim of discipline.
“Go and stand in the corner!” repeated Miss Kelly firmly.
Carmella obeyed, and the sudden peace that brooded over the entire forty children confirmed Miss Kelly’s instinct.
The school was overwhelmingly Italian. Most of the children, like Carmella, talked one or another dialect of Italian in their homes. In the school itself Italian was forbidden. They even played their games at recess in English, except when some one hit some one else and was sworn at in Italian.
Mr. Carroll, the principal, sensed the need for stressing English in his classrooms, and definitely ignored the supposedly well-balanced curriculum laid down by the school board and superintendent. In consequence, his school stood lowest in the uniform examinations. But he was content, knowing that his first duty to his charges lay in seeing that they talked the language of their country.
“And,” he told the superintendent, when this prob-
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