Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/47

 has pricked himself with his pen, and another one cries because he has bought copy-book No. 2 instead of No. . Fifty in a class, who know nothing; and all of them with those flabby little hands, must be taught to write; they carry in their pockets bits of licorice, buttons, phial corks, pounded brick,—all sorts of little things, and the teacher has to search them; but they hide these objects even in their shoes. And they are not attentive: a fly enters through the window, and throws them all into confusion; and in summer they bring grass into school, and horn-bugs, which fly round in circles or fall into the inkstand, and then streak the copy-books all over with ink. The schoolmistress has to play mother to all of them, to help them dress themselves, tie up their pricked fingers, pick up their caps when they drop them, watch to see that they do not exchange coats, and that they do not indulge in cat-calls and shrieks. Poor schoolmistress! And then the mothers come to complain: “How comes it, signorina, that my boy has lost his pen? How does it happen that mine learns nothing? Why is not my boy put on the roll of honor, when he knows so much? Why don't you have that nail which tore my Piero's trousers taken out of the bench?”

Sometimes my brother's teacher gets out of patience with the boys; and when she can resist no longer, she bites her finger, to keep herself from dealing a blow; she loses temper, and then she repents, and pets the child whom she has scolded; she sends a little rogue out of school, and then swallows her tears, and flies into a rage with parents who make the little ones fast by way of punishment. Schoolmistress Delcati is