[Sidenote: Monopolizing Time]
Mamie Eggleston was a devoted pupil in the fifth grade of a school in
Paterson, New Jersey. She never missed an opportunity to talk with Miss
Olmstead, her teacher, before or after school.
“May I come in?” Mamie would say if she saw Miss Olmstead seated at her
desk before school began.
“Yes, indeed.”
Then for fifteen minutes Mamie would talk just for the sake of saying
something to someone who would listen.
“I like Miss Forsyth’s new waist, don’t you?”
“Are those little black bands on your wrists tied or fastened on? That
waist is awfully becoming to you. I have a pink waist. My mother made it
for me. But she won’t let me wear it to school,” etc., etc.
“There’s the bell,” Miss Olmstead would say as she thought, “Well,
there’s another fifteen minutes lost and I intended to put the
arithmetic problems on the board before school began.”