AN ACCIDENT.

Apuntes

**AN ACCIDENT** Friday, 21st. The year has begun with an accident. On my way to school this morning, I was repeating to my father these words of our teacher when we perceived that the street was full of people who were pressing close to the door of the schoolhouse. Suddenly, my father said, “An accident! The year is beginning badly!” We entered with great difficulty. The big hall was crowded with parents and children, whom the teachers had not succeeded in drawing off into the classrooms. All were turning towards the director’s room, and we heard the words, “Poor boy! Poor Robetti!” Over their heads, at the end of the room, we could see the helmet of a policeman and the bald head of the director. Then, a gentleman with a tall hat entered, and all said, “That is the doctor.” My father inquired of a master, “What has happened?” “A wheel has passed over his foot,” replied the latter. “His foot has been crushed,” said another. He was a boy belonging to the second class who, on his way to school through the Via Dora Grossa, saw a little child of the lowest class who had run away from his mother fall down in the middle of the street, a few paces from an omnibus that was bearin...