Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away.
They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be
done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of
the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out
through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He
thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy
complexity of it all.
And this was part and parcel of his daughter's daily work in school! Still
dazed, disturbed but curious, he sat and watched and listened, while the
bewildering demands of Deborah's big family kept crowding in upon her. He
went to a few of the class-rooms and found that reading and writing,
arithmetic and spelling were being taught in ways which he had never
dreamed of. He found a kindergarten class, a carpenter shop and a printing
shop, a sewing class and a cooking class in a large model kitchen. He
watched the nurse in her hospital room, he went into the dental clinic
where a squad of fifty urchins were having their teeth examined, and out
upon a small side roof he found a score of small invalids in steamer
chairs, all fast asleep. It was a strange astounding school! He heard
Deborah speak of a mothers' club and a neighborhood association; and he
learned of other ventures here, the school doctor, the nurse and the
visitor endlessly making experiments, delving into the neighborhood for
ways to meet its problems.
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