And then even the poor mothers who do not know how to read, open the copy-books, gaze at the problems, and ask particulars: "Only eight?—Ten with commendation?—Nine for the lesson?"

And they grow uneasy, and rejoice, and interrogate the masters, and talk of prospectuses and examinations. How beautiful all this is, and how great and how immense is its promise for the world!

THY FATHER.

THE DEAF-MUTE.

Sunday, 28th.

The month of May could not have had a better ending than my visit of this morning. We heard a jingling of the bell, and all ran to see what it meant. I heard my father say in a tone of astonishment:—

"You here, Giorgio?"

Giorgio was our gardener in Chieri, who now has his family at Condove, and who had just arrived from Genoa, where he had disembarked on the preceding day, on his return from Greece, where he has been working on the railway for the last three years. He had a big bundle in his arms. He has grown a little older, but his face is still red and jolly.

My father wished to have him enter; but he refused, and suddenly inquired, assuming a serious expression:

"How is my family? How is Gigia?"

"She was well a few days ago," replied my mother.

Giorgio uttered a deep sigh.

"Oh, God be praised! I had not the courage to present myself at the Deaf-mute Institution until I had heard about her. I will leave my bundle here, and run to get her. It is three years since I have seen my poor little daughter! Three years since I have seen any of my people!"

My father said to me, "Accompany him."

"Excuse me; one word more," said the gardener, from the landing.

My father interrupted him, "And your affairs?"

"All right," the other replied. "Thanks to God, I have brought back a few soldi. But I wanted to inquire. Tell me how the education of the little dumb girl is getting on. When I left her, she was a poor little animal, poor thing! I don't put much faith in those colleges. Has she learned how to make signs? My wife did write to me, to be sure, 'She is learning to speak; she is making progress.' But I said to myself, What is the use of her learning to talk if I don't know how to make the signs myself? How shall we manage to understand each other, poor little thing? That is well enough to enable them to understand each other, one unfortunate to comprehend another unfortunate. How is she getting on, then? How is she?"

My father smiled, and replied:—

"I shall not tell you anything about it; you will see; go, go; don't waste another minute!"

We took our departure; the institute is close by. As we went along with huge strides, the gardener talked to me, and grew sad.

"Ah, my poor Gigia! To be born with such an infirmity! To think that I have never heard her call me father; that she has never heard me call her my daughter; that she has never either heard or uttered a single word since she has been in the world! And it is lucky that a charitable gentleman was found to pay the expenses of the institution. But that is all—she could not enter there until she was eight years old. She has not been at home for three years. She is now going on eleven. And she has grown? Tell me, she has grown? She is in good spirits?"

"You will see in a moment, you will see in a moment," I replied, hastening my pace.

"But where is this institution?" he demanded. "My wife went with her after I was gone. It seems to me that it ought to be near here."

We had just reached it. We at once entered the parlor. An attendant came to meet us.

"I am the father of Gigia Voggi," said the gardener; "give me my daughter instantly."

"They are at play," replied the attendant; "I will go and inform the matron." And he hastened away.

The gardener could no longer speak nor stand still; he stared at all four walls, without seeing anything.

The door opened; a teacher entered, dressed in black, holding a little girl by the hand.

Father and daughter gazed at one another for an instant; then flew into each other's arms, uttering a cry.

The girl was dressed in a white and reddish striped material, with a gray apron. She is a little taller than I. She cried, and clung to her father's neck with both arms.

Her father disengaged himself, and began to survey her from head to foot, panting as though he had run a long way; and he exclaimed: "Ah, how she has grown! How pretty she has become! Oh, my dear, poor Gigia! My poor mute child!—Are you her teacher, signora? Tell her to make some of her signs to me; for I shall be able to understand something, and then I will learn little by little. Tell her to make me understand something with her gestures."

The teacher smiled, and said in a low voice to the girl, "Who is this man who has come to see you?"

And the girl replied with a smile, in a coarse, strange, dissonant voice, like that of a savage who was speaking for the first time in our language, but with a distinct pronunciation, "He is my fa-ther."

The gardener fell back a pace, and shrieked like a madman: "She speaks! Is it possible! Is it possible! She speaks? Can you speak, my child? can you speak? Say something to me: you can speak?" and he embraced her afresh, and kissed her thrice on the brow. "But it is not with signs that she talks, signora; it is not with her fingers? What does this mean?"

"No, Signor Voggi," rejoined the teacher, "it is not with signs. That was the old way. Here we teach the new method, the oral method. How is it that you did not know it?"

"I knew nothing about it!" replied the gardener, lost in amazement. "I have been abroad for the last three years. Oh, they wrote to me, and I did not understand. I am a blockhead. Oh, my daughter, you understand me, then? Do you hear my voice? Answer me: do you hear me? Do you hear what I say?"

"Why, no, my good man," said the teacher; "she does not hear your voice, because she is deaf. She understands from the movements of your lips what the words are that you utter; this is the way the thing is managed; but she does not hear your voice any more than she does the words which she speaks to you; she pronounces them, because we have taught her, letter by letter, how she must place her lips and move her tongue, and what effort she must make with her chest and throat, in order to emit a sound."

The gardener did not understand, and stood with his mouth wide open. He did not yet believe it.

"Tell me, Gigia," he asked his daughter, whispering in her ear, "are you glad that your father has come back?" and he raised his face again, and stood awaiting her reply.

The girl looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing.

Her father was perturbed.

The teacher laughed. Then she said: "My good man, she does not answer you, because she did not see the movements of your lips: you spoke in her ear! Repeat your question, keeping your face well before hers."

The father, gazing straight in her face, repeated, "Are you glad that your father has come back? that he is not going away again?"

The girl, who had observed his lips attentively, seeking even to see inside his mouth, replied frankly:—

"Yes, I am de-light-ed that you have re-turned, that you are not go-ing a-way a-gain—nev-er a-gain."

Her father embraced her impetuously, and then in great haste, in order to make quite sure, he overwhelmed her with questions.

"What is mamma's name?"

"An-to-nia."

"What is the name of your little sister?"

"Ad-e-laide."

"What is the name of this college?"

"The Deaf-mute Insti-tution."

"How many are two times ten?"

"Twen-ty."

While we thought that he was laughing for joy, he suddenly burst out crying. But this was the result of joy also.

"Take courage," said the teacher to him; "you have reason to rejoice, not to weep. You see that you are making your daughter cry also. You are pleased, then?"

The gardener grasped the teacher's hand and kissed it two or three times, saying: "Thanks, thanks, thanks! a hundred thanks, a thousand thanks, dear Signora Teacher! and forgive me for not knowing how to say anything else!"

"But she not only speaks," said the teacher; "your daughter also knows how to write. She knows how to reckon. She knows the names of all common objects. She knows a little history and geography. She is now in the regular class. When she has passed through the two remaining classes, she will know much more. When she leaves here, she will be in a condition to adopt a profession. We already have deaf-mutes who stand in the shops to serve customers, and they perform their duties like any one else."

Again the gardener was astounded. It seemed as though his ideas were becoming confused again. He stared at his daughter and scratched his head. His face demanded another explanation.

Then the teacher turned to the attendant and said to him:—

"Call a child of the preparatory class for me."

The attendant returned, in a short time, with a deaf-mute of eight or nine years, who had entered the institution a few days before.

"This girl," said the mistress, "is one of those whom we are instructing in the first elements. This is the way it is done. I want to make her say a. Pay attention."

The teacher opened her mouth, as one opens it to pronounce the vowel a, and motioned to the child to open her mouth in the same manner. Then the mistress made her a sign to emit her voice. She did so; but instead of a, she pronounced o.

"No," said the mistress, "that is not right." And taking the child's two hands, she placed one of them on her own throat and the other on her chest, and repeated, "a."

The child felt with her hands the movements of the mistress's throat and chest, opened her mouth again as before, and pronounced extremely well, "a."

In the same manner, the mistress made her pronounce c and d, still keeping the two little hands on her own throat and chest.

"Now do you understand?" she inquired.

The father understood; but he seemed more astonished than when he had not understood.

"And they are taught to speak in the same way?" he asked, after a moment of reflection, gazing at the teacher. "You have the patience to teach them to speak in that manner, little by little, and so many of them? one by one—through years and years? But you are saints; that's what you are! You are angels of paradise! There is not in the world a reward that is worthy of you! What is there that I can say? Ah! leave me alone with my daughter a little while now. Let me have her to myself for five minutes."

And drawing her to a seat apart he began to interrogate her, and she to reply, and he laughed with beaming eyes, slapping his fists down on his knees; and he took his daughter's hands, and stared at her, beside himself with delight at hearing her, as though her voice had been one which came from heaven; then he asked the teacher, "Would the Signor Director permit me to thank him?"

"The director is not here," replied the mistress; "but there is another person whom you should thank. Every little girl here is given into the charge of an older companion, who acts the part of sister or mother to her. Your little girl has been intrusted to the care of a deaf-mute of seventeen, the daughter of a baker, who is kind and very fond of her; she has been assisting her for two years to dress herself every morning; she combs her hair, she teaches her to sew, she mends her clothes, she is good company for her.—Luigia, what is the name of your mamma in the institute?"

The girl smiled, and said, "Ca-te-rina Gior-dano." Then she said to her father, "She is ve-ry, ve-ry good."

The attendant, who had withdrawn at a signal from the mistress, returned almost at once with a light-haired deaf-mute, a robust girl, with a cheerful countenance, and also dressed in the red and white striped stuff, with a gray apron; she paused at the door and blushed; then she bent her head with a smile. She had the figure of a woman, but seemed like a child.

Giorgio's daughter instantly ran to her, took her by the arm, like a child, and drew her to her father, saying, in her heavy voice, "Ca-te-rina Gior-dano."

"Ah, what a splendid girl!" exclaimed her father; and he stretched out one hand to caress her, but drew it back again, and repeated, "Ah, what a good girl! May God bless her, may He grant her all good fortune, all consolations; may He make her and hers always happy, so good a girl is she, my poor Gigia! It is an honest workingman, the poor father of a family, who wishes you this with all his heart."

The big girl caressed the little one, still keeping her face bent, and smiling, and the gardener continued to gaze at her, as at a madonna.

"You can take your daughter with you for the day," said the mistress.

"Won't I take her, though!" rejoined the gardener. "I'll take her to Condove, and fetch her back to-morrow morning. Think for a bit whether I won't take her!"

The girl ran off to dress.

"It is three years since I have seen her!" repeated the gardener. "Now she speaks! I will take her to Condove with me on the instant. But first I shall take a ramble about Turin, with my deaf-mute on my arm, so that all may see her, and take her to see some of my friends! Ah, what a beautiful day! This is consolation indeed!—Here's your father's arm, my Gigia."

The girl, who had returned with a little mantle and cap on, took his arm.

"And thanks to all!" said the father, as he reached the threshold. "Thanks to all, with my whole soul! I shall come back another time to thank you all again."

He stood for a moment in thought, then disengaged himself abruptly from the girl, turned back, fumbling in his waistcoat with his hand, and shouted like a man in a fury:—

"Come now, I am not a poor devil! So here, I leave twenty lire for the institution,—a fine new gold piece."

And with a tremendous bang, he deposited his gold piece on the table.

"No, no, my good man," said the mistress, with emotion. "Take back your money. I cannot accept it. Take it back. It is not my place. You shall see about that when the director is here. But he will not accept anything either; be sure of that. You have toiled too hard to earn it, poor man. We shall be greatly obliged to you, all the same."

"No; I shall leave it," replied the gardener, obstinately; "and then—we will see."

But the mistress put his money back in his pocket, without leaving him time to reject it. And then he resigned himself with a shake of the head; and then, wafting a kiss to the mistress and to the large girl, he quickly took his daughter's arm again, and hurried with her out of the door, saying:—

"Come, come, my daughter, my poor dumb child, my treasure!"

And the girl exclaimed, in her harsh voice:—

"Oh, how beau-ti-ful the sun is!"



JUNE.

GARIBALDI.

June 3d.

To-morrow is the National Festival Day.

TO-DAY is a day of national mourning. Garibaldi died last night. Do you know who he is? He is the man who liberated ten millions of Italians from the tyranny of the Bourbons. He died at the age of seventy-five. He was born at Nice, the son of a ship captain. At eight years of age, he saved a woman's life; at thirteen, he dragged into safety a boat-load of his companions who were shipwrecked; at twenty-seven, he rescued from the water at Marseilles a drowning youth; at forty-one, he saved a ship from burning on the ocean. He fought for ten years in America for the liberty of a strange people; he fought in three wars against the Austrians, for the liberation of Lombardy and Trentino; he defended Rome from the French in 1849; he delivered Naples and Palermo in 1860; he fought again for Rome in 1867; he combated with the Germans in defence of France in 1870. He was possessed of the flame of heroism and the genius of war. He was engaged in forty battles, and won thirty-seven of them.

When he was not fighting, he was laboring for his living, or he shut himself up in a solitary island, and tilled the soil. He was teacher, sailor, workman, trader, soldier, general, dictator. He was simple, great, and good. He hated all oppressors, he loved all peoples, he protected all the weak; he had no other aspiration than good, he refused honors, he scorned death, he adored Italy. When he uttered his war-cry, legions of valorous men hastened to him from all quarters; gentlemen left their palaces, workmen their ships, youths their schools, to go and fight in the sunshine of his glory. In time of war he wore a red shirt. He was strong, blond, and handsome. On the field of battle he was a thunder-bolt, in his affections he was a child, in affliction a saint. Thousands of Italians have died for their country, happy, if, when dying, they saw him pass victorious in the distance; thousands would have allowed themselves to be killed for him; millions have blessed and will bless him.

He is dead. The whole world mourns him. You do not understand him now. But you will read of his deeds, you will constantly hear him spoken of in the course of your life; and gradually, as you grow up, his image will grow before you; when you become a man, you will behold him as a giant; and when you are no longer in the world, when your sons' sons and those who shall be born from them are no longer among the living, the generations will still behold on high his luminous head as a redeemer of the peoples, crowned by the names of his victories as with a circlet of stars; and the brow and the soul of every Italian will beam when he utters his name.

THY FATHER.

THE ARMY.

Sunday, 11th.

The National Festival Day. Postponed for a week on account of the death of Garibaldi.

We have been to the Piazza Castello, to see the review of soldiers, who defiled before the commandant of the army corps, between two vast lines of people. As they marched past to the sound of flourishes from trumpets and bands, my father pointed out to me the Corps and the glories of the banners. First, the pupils of the Academy, those who will become officers in the Engineers and the Artillery, about three hundred in number, dressed in black, passed with the bold and easy elegance of students and soldiers. After them defiled the infantry, the brigade of Aosta, which fought at Goito and at San Martino, and the Bergamo brigade, which fought at Castelfidardo, four regiments of them, company after company, thousands of red aiguillettes, which seemed like so many double and very long garlands of blood-colored flowers, extended and agitated from the two ends, and borne athwart the crowd. After the infantry, the soldiers of the Mining Corps advanced,—the workingmen of war, with their plumes of black horse-tails, and their crimson bands; and while these were passing, we beheld advancing behind them hundreds of long, straight plumes, which rose above the heads of the spectators; they were the mountaineers, the defenders of the portals of Italy, all tall, rosy, and stalwart, with hats of Calabrian fashion, and revers of a beautiful, bright green, the color of the grass on their native mountains. The mountaineers were still marching past, when a quiver ran through the crowd, and the bersaglieri, the old twelfth battalion, the first who entered Rome through the breach at the Porta Pia, bronzed, alert, brisk, with fluttering plumes, passed like a wave in a sea of black, making the piazza ring with the shrill blasts of their trumpets, which seemed shouts of joy. But their trumpeting was drowned by a broken and hollow rumble, which announced the field artillery; and then the latter passed in triumph, seated on their lofty caissons, drawn by three hundred pairs of fiery horses,—those fine soldiers with yellow lacings, and their long cannons of brass and steel gleaming on the light carriages, as they jolted and resounded, and made the earth tremble.

And then came the mountain artillery, slowly, gravely, beautiful in its laborious and rude semblance, with its large soldiers, with its powerful mules—that mountain artillery which carries dismay and death wherever man can set his foot. And last of all, the fine regiment of the Genoese cavalry, which had wheeled down like a whirlwind on ten fields of battle, from Santa Lucia to Villafranca, passed at a gallop, with their helmets glittering in the sun, their lances erect, their pennons floating in the air, sparkling with gold and silver, filling the air with jingling and neighing.

"How beautiful it is!" I exclaimed. My father almost reproved me for these words, and said to me:—

"You are not to regard the army as a fine spectacle. All these young men, so full of strength and hope, may be called upon any day to defend our country, and fall in a few hours, crushed to fragments by bullets and grape-shot. Every time that you hear the cry, at a feast, 'Hurrah for the army! hurrah for Italy!' picture to yourself, behind the regiments which are passing, a plain covered with corpses, and inundated with blood, and then the greeting to the army will proceed from the very depths of your heart, and the image of Italy will appear to you more severe and grand."

ITALY.

Tuesday, 14th.

Salute your country thus, on days of festival: "Italy, my country, dear and noble land, where my father and my mother were born, and where they will be buried, where I hope to live and die, where my children will grow up and die; beautiful Italy, great and glorious for many centuries, united and free for a few years; thou who didst disseminate so great a light of intellect divine over the world, and for whom so many valiant men have died on the battle-field, and so many heroes on the gallows; august mother of three hundred cities, and thirty millions of sons; I, a child, who do not understand thee as yet, and who do not know thee in thy entirety, I venerate and love thee with all my soul, and I am proud of having been born of thee, and of calling myself thy son. I love thy splendid seas and thy sublime mountains; I love thy solemn monuments and thy immortal memories; I love thy glory and thy beauty; I love and venerate the whole of thee as that beloved portion of thee where I, for the first time, beheld the light and heard thy name. I love the whole of thee, with a single affection and with equal gratitude,—Turin the valiant, Genoa the superb, Bologna the learned, Venice the enchanting, Milan the mighty; I love you with the uniform reverence of a son, gentle Florence and terrible Palermo, immense and beautiful Naples, marvellous and eternal Rome. I love thee, my sacred country! And I swear that I will love all thy sons like brothers; that I will always honor in my heart thy great men, living and dead; that I will be an industrious and honest citizen, constantly intent on ennobling myself, in order to render myself worthy of thee, to assist with my small powers in causing misery, ignorance, injustice, crime, to disappear one day from thy face, so that thou mayest live and expand tranquilly in the majesty of thy right and of thy strength. I swear that I will serve thee, as it may be granted to me, with my mind, with my arm, with my heart, humbly, ardently; and that, if the day should dawn in which I should be called on to give my blood for thee and my life, I will give my blood, and I will die, crying thy holy name to heaven, and wafting my last kiss to thy blessed banner."

THY FATHER.



THIRTY-TWO DEGREES.

Friday, 16th.

During the five days which have passed since the National Festival, the heat has increased by three degrees. We are in full summer now, and begin to feel weary; all have lost their fine rosy color of springtime; necks and legs are growing thin, heads droop and eyes close. Poor Nelli, who suffers much from the heat, has turned the color of wax in the face; he sometimes falls into a heavy sleep, with his head on his copy-book; but Garrone is always watchful, and places an open book upright in front of him, so that the master may not see him. Crossi rests his red head against the bench in a certain way, so that it looks as though it had been detached from his body and placed there separately. Nobis complains that there are too many of us, and that we corrupt the air. Ah, what an effort it costs now to study! I gaze through the windows at those beautiful trees which cast so deep a shade, where I should be so glad to run, and sadness and wrath overwhelm me at being obliged to go and shut myself up among the benches. But then I take courage at the sight of my kind mother, who is always watching me, scrutinizing me, when I return from school, to see whether I am not pale; and at every page of my work she says to me:—

"Do you still feel well?" and every morning at six, when she wakes me for my lesson, "Courage! there are only so many days more: then you will be free, and will get rested,—you will go to the shade of country lanes."

Yes, she is perfectly right to remind me of the boys who are working in the fields in the full heat of the sun, or among the white sands of the river, which blind and scorch them, and of those in the glass-factories, who stand all day long motionless, with head bent over a flame of gas; and all of them rise earlier than we do, and have no vacations. Courage, then! And even in this respect, Derossi is at the head of all, for he suffers neither from heat nor drowsiness; he is always wide awake, and cheery, with his golden curls, as he was in the winter, and he studies without effort, and keeps all about him alert, as though he freshened the air with his voice.

And there are two others, also, who are always awake and attentive: stubborn Stardi, who pricks his face, to prevent himself from going to sleep; and the more weary and heated he is, the more he sets his teeth, and he opens his eyes so wide that it seems as though he wanted to eat the teacher; and that barterer of a Garoffi, who is wholly absorbed in manufacturing fans out of red paper, decorated with little figures from match-boxes, which he sells at two centesimi apiece.

But the bravest of all is Coretti; poor Coretti, who gets up at five o'clock, to help his father carry wood! At eleven, in school, he can no longer keep his eyes open, and his head droops on his breast. And nevertheless, he shakes himself, punches himself on the back of the neck, asks permission to go out and wash his face, and makes his neighbors shake and pinch him. But this morning he could not resist, and he fell into a leaden sleep. The master called him loudly; "Coretti!" He did not hear. The master, irritated, repeated, "Coretti!" Then the son of the charcoal-man, who lives next to him at home, rose and said:—

"He worked from five until seven carrying faggots." The teacher allowed him to sleep on, and continued with the lesson for half an hour. Then he went to Coretti's seat, and wakened him very, very gently, by blowing in his face. On beholding the master in front of him, he started back in alarm. But the master took his head in his hands, and said, as he kissed him on the hair:—

"I am not reproving you, my son. Your sleep is not at all that of laziness; it is the sleep of fatigue."

MY FATHER.

Saturday, 17th.

Surely, neither your comrade Coretti nor Garrone would ever have answered their fathers as you answered yours this afternoon. Enrico! How is it possible? You must promise me solemnly that this shall never happen again so long as I live. Every time that an impertinent reply flies to your lips at a reproof from your father, think of that day which will infallibly come when he will call you to his bedside to tell you, "Enrico, I am about to leave you." Oh, my son, when you hear his voice for the last time, and for a long while afterwards, when you weep alone in his deserted room, in the midst of those books which he will never open again, then, on recalling that you have at times been wanting in respect to him, you, too, will ask yourself, "How is it possible?" Then you will understand that he has always been your best friend, that when he was constrained to punish you, it caused him more suffering than it did you, and that he never made you weep except for the sake of doing you good; and then you will repent, and you will kiss with tears that desk at which he worked so much, at which he wore out his life for his children. You do not understand now; he hides from you all of himself except his kindness and his love. You do not know that he is sometimes so broken down with toil that he thinks he has only a few more days to live, and that at such moments he talks only of you; he has in his heart no other trouble than that of leaving you poor and without protection.

And how often, when meditating on this, does he enter your chamber while you are asleep, and stand there, lamp in hand, gazing at you; and then he makes an effort, and weary and sad as he is, he returns to his labor; and neither do you know that he often seeks you and remains with you because he has a bitterness in his heart, sorrows which attack all men in the world, and he seeks you as a friend, to obtain consolation himself and forgetfulness, and he feels the need of taking refuge in your affection, to recover his serenity and his courage: think, then, what must be his sorrow, when instead of finding in you affection, he finds coldness and disrespect! Never again stain yourself with this horrible ingratitude! Reflect, that were you as good as a saint, you could never repay him sufficiently for what he has done and for what he is constantly doing for you. And reflect, also, we cannot count on life; a misfortune might remove your father while you are still a boy,—in two years, in three months, to-morrow.

Ah, my poor Enrico, when you see all about you changing, how empty, how desolate the house will appear, with your poor mother clothed in black! Go, my son, go to your father; he is in his room at work; go on tiptoe, so that he may not hear you enter; go and lay your forehead on his knees, and beseech him to pardon and to bless you.

THY MOTHER.

IN THE COUNTRY.

Monday, 19th.

My good father forgave me, even on this occasion, and allowed me to go on an expedition to the country, which had been arranged on Wednesday, with the father of Coretti, the wood-peddler.

We were all in need of a mouthful of hill air. It was a festival day. We met yesterday at two o'clock in the place of the Statuto, Derossi, Garrone, Garoffi, Precossi, Coretti, father and son, and I, with our provisions of fruit, sausages, and hard-boiled eggs; we had also leather bottles and tin cups. Garrone carried a gourd filled with white wine; Coretti, his father's soldier-canteen, full of red wine; and little Precossi, in the blacksmith's blouse, held under his arm a two-kilogramme loaf.

We went in the omnibus as far as Gran Madre di Dio, and then off, as briskly as possible, to the hills. How green, how shady, how fresh it was! We rolled over and over in the grass, we dipped our faces in the rivulets, we leaped the hedges. The elder Coretti followed us at a distance, with his jacket thrown over his shoulders, smoking his clay pipe, and from time to time threatening us with his hand, to prevent our tearing holes in our trousers.

Precossi whistled; I had never heard him whistle before. The younger Coretti did the same, as he went along. That little fellow knows how to make everything with his jack-knife a finger's length long,—mill-wheels, forks, squirts; and he insisted on carrying the other boys' things, and he was loaded down until he was dripping with perspiration, but he was still as nimble as a goat. Derossi halted every moment to tell us the names of the plants and insects. I don't understand how he manages to know so many things. And Garrone nibbled at his bread in silence; but he no longer attacks it with the cheery bites of old, poor Garrone! now that he has lost his mother. But he is always as good as bread himself. When one of us ran back to obtain the momentum for leaping a ditch, he ran to the other side, and held out his hands to us; and as Precossi was afraid of cows, having been tossed by one when a child, Garrone placed himself in front of him every time that we passed any. We mounted up to Santa Margherita, and then went down the decline by leaps, rolls, and slides. Precossi tumbled into a thorn-bush, and tore a hole in his blouse, and stood there overwhelmed with shame, with the strip dangling; but Garoffi, who always has pins in his jacket, fixed it so that it was not perceptible, while the other kept saying, "Excuse me, excuse me," and then he set out to run once more.

Garoffi did not waste his time on the way; he picked salad herbs and snails, and put every stone that glistened in the least into his pocket, supposing that there was gold and silver in it. And on we went, running, rolling, and climbing through the shade and in the sun, up and down, through all the lanes and cross-roads, until we arrived dishevelled and breathless at the crest of a hill, where we seated ourselves to take our lunch on the grass.

We could see an immense plain, and all the blue Alps with their white summits. We were dying of hunger; the bread seemed to be melting. The elder Coretti handed us our portions of sausage on gourd leaves. And then we all began to talk at once about the teachers, the comrades who had not been able to come, and the examinations. Precossi was rather ashamed to eat, and Garrone thrust the best bits of his share into his mouth by force. Coretti was seated next his father, with his legs crossed; they seem more like two brothers than father and son, when seen thus together, both rosy and smiling, with those white teeth of theirs. The father drank with zest, emptying the bottles and the cups which we left half finished, and said:—

"Wine hurts you boys who are studying; it is the wood-sellers who need it." Then he grasped his son by the nose, and shook him, saying to us, "Boys, you must love this fellow, for he is a flower of a man of honor; I tell you so myself!" And then we all laughed, except Garrone. And he went on, as he drank, "It's a shame, eh! now you are all good friends together, and in a few years, who knows, Enrico and Derossi will be lawyers or professors or I don't know what, and the other four of you will be in shops or at a trade, and the deuce knows where, and then—good night comrades!"

"Nonsense!" rejoined Derossi; "for me, Garrone will always be Garrone, Precossi will always be Precossi, and the same with all the others, were I to become the emperor of Russia: where they are, there I shall go also."

"Bless you!" exclaimed the elder Coretti, raising his flask; "that's the way to talk, by Heavens! Touch your glass here! Hurrah for brave comrades, and hurrah for school, which makes one family of you, of those who have and those who have not!"

We all clinked his flask with the skins and the cups, and drank for the last time.

"Hurrah for the fourth of the 49th!" he cried, as he rose to his feet, and swallowed the last drop; "and if you have to do with squadrons too, see that you stand firm, like us old ones, my lads!"

It was already late. We descended, running and singing, and walking long distances all arm in arm, and we arrived at the Po as twilight fell, and thousands of fireflies were flitting about. And we only parted in the Piazza dello Statuto after having agreed to meet there on the following Sunday, and go to the Vittorio Emanuele to see the distribution of prizes to the graduates of the evening schools.

What a beautiful day! How happy I should have been on my return home, had I not encountered my poor schoolmistress! I met her coming down the staircase of our house, almost in the dark, and, as soon as she recognized me, she took both my hands, and whispered in my ear, "Good by, Enrico; remember me!" I perceived that she was weeping. I went up and told my mother about it.

"I have just met my schoolmistress."—"She was just going to bed," replied my mother, whose eyes were red. And then she added very sadly, gazing intently at me, "Your poor teacher—is very ill."

THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES TO THE WORKINGMEN.

Sunday, 25th.

As we had agreed, we all went together to the Theatre Vittorio Emanuele, to view the distribution of prizes to the workingmen. The theatre was adorned as on the 14th of March, and thronged, but almost wholly with the families of workmen; and the pit was occupied with the male and female pupils of the school of choral singing. These sang a hymn to the soldiers who had died in the Crimea; which was so beautiful that, when it was finished, all rose and clapped and shouted, so that the song had to be repeated from the beginning. And then the prize-winners began immediately to march past the mayor, the prefect, and many others, who presented them with books, savings-bank books, diplomas, and medals. In one corner of the pit I espied the little mason, sitting beside his mother; and in another place there was the head-master; and behind him, the red head of my master of the second grade.

The first to defile were the pupils of the evening drawing classes—the goldsmiths, engravers, lithographers, and also the carpenters and masons; then those of the commercial school; then those of the Musical Lyceum, among them several girls, workingwomen, all dressed in festal attire, who were saluted with great applause, and who laughed. Last came the pupils of the elementary evening schools, and then it began to be a beautiful sight. They were of all ages, of all trades, and dressed in all sorts of ways,—men with gray hair, factory boys, artisans with big black beards. The little ones were at their ease; the men, a little embarrassed. The people clapped the oldest and the youngest, but none of the spectators laughed, as they did at our festival: all faces were attentive and serious.

Many of the prize-winners had wives and children in the pit, and there were little children who, when they saw their father pass across the stage, called him by name at the tops of their voices, and signalled to him with their hands, laughing violently. Peasants passed, and porters; they were from the Buoncompagni School. From the Cittadella School there was a bootblack whom my father knew, and the prefect gave him a diploma. After him I saw approaching a man as big as a giant, whom I fancied that I had seen several times before. It was the father of the little mason, who had won the second prize. I remembered when I had seen him in the garret, at the bedside of his sick son, and I immediately sought out his son in the pit. Poor little mason! he was staring at his father with beaming eyes, and, in order to conceal his emotion, he made his hare's face. At that moment I heard a burst of applause, and I glanced at the stage: a little chimney-sweep stood there, with a clean face, but in his working-clothes, and the mayor was holding him by the hand and talking to him.

After the chimney-sweep came a cook; then came one of the city sweepers, from the Raineri School, to get a prize. I felt I know not what in my heart,—something like a great affection and a great respect, at the thought of how much those prizes had cost all those workingmen, fathers of families, full of care; how much toil added to their labors, how many hours snatched from their sleep, of which they stand in such great need, and what efforts of intelligences not habituated to study, and of huge hands rendered clumsy with work!

A factory boy passed, and it was evident that his father had lent him his jacket for the occasion, for his sleeves hung down so that he was forced to turn them back on the stage, in order to receive his prize: and many laughed; but the laugh was speedily stifled by the applause. Next came an old man with a bald head and a white beard. Several artillery soldiers passed, from among those who attended evening school in our schoolhouse; then came custom-house guards and policemen, from among those who guard our schools.

At the conclusion, the pupils of the evening schools again sang the hymn to the dead in the Crimea, but this time with so much dash, with a strength of affection which came so directly from the heart, that the audience hardly applauded at all, and all retired in deep emotion, slowly and noiselessly.

In a few moments the whole street was thronged. In front of the entrance to the theatre was the chimney-sweep, with his prize book bound in red, and all around were gentlemen talking to him. Many exchanged salutations from the opposite side of the street,—workmen, boys, policemen, teachers. My master of the second grade came out in the midst of the crowd, between two artillery men. And there were workmen's wives with babies in their arms, who held in their tiny hands their father's diploma, and exhibited it to the crowd in their pride.

MY DEAD SCHOOLMISTRESS.

Tuesday, 27th.

While we were at the Theatre Vittorio Emanuele, my poor schoolmistress died. She died at two o'clock, a week after she had come to see my mother. The head-master came to the school yesterday morning to announce it to us; and he said:—

"Those of you who were her pupils know how good she was, how she loved her boys: she was a mother to them. Now, she is no more. For a long time a terrible malady has been sapping her life. If she had not been obliged to work to earn her bread, she could have taken care of herself, and perhaps recovered. At all events, she could have prolonged her life for several months, if she had procured a leave of absence. But she wished to remain among her boys to the very last day. On the evening of Saturday, the seventeenth, she took leave of them, with the certainty that she should never see them again. She gave them good advice, kissed them all, and went away sobbing. No one will ever behold her again. Remember her, my boys!"

Little Precossi, who had been one of her pupils in the upper primary, dropped his head on his desk and began to cry.

Yesterday afternoon, after school, we all went together to the house of the dead woman, to accompany her to church. There was a hearse in the street, with two horses, and many people were waiting, and conversing in a low voice. There was the head-master, all the masters and mistresses from our school, and from the other schoolhouses where she had taught in bygone years. There were nearly all the little children in her classes, led by the hand by their mothers, who carried tapers; and there were a very great many from the other classes, and fifty scholars from the Baretti School, some with wreaths in their hands, some with bunches of roses. A great many bouquets of flowers had already been placed on the hearse, upon which was fastened a large wreath of acacia, with an inscription in black letters: The old pupils of the fourth grade to their mistress. And under the large wreath a little one was suspended, which the babies had brought. Among the crowd were visible many servant-women, who had been sent by their mistresses with candles; and there were also two serving-men in livery, with lighted torches; and a wealthy gentleman, the father of one of the mistress's scholars, had sent his carriage, lined with blue satin. All were crowded together near the door. Several girls were wiping away their tears.

We waited for a while in silence. At length the casket was brought out. Some of the little ones began to cry loudly when they saw the coffin slid into the hearse, and one began to shriek, as though he had only then comprehended that his mistress was dead, and he was seized with such a convulsive fit of sobbing, that they were obliged to carry him away.

The procession got slowly into line and set out. First came the daughters of the Ritiro della Concezione, dressed in green; then the daughters of Maria, all in white, with a blue ribbon; then the priests; and behind the hearse, the masters and mistresses, the tiny scholars of the upper primary, and all the others; and, at the end of all, the crowd. People came to the windows and to the doors, and on seeing all those boys, and the wreath, they said, "It is a schoolmistress." Even some of the ladies who accompanied the smallest children wept.

When the church was reached, the casket was removed from the hearse, and carried to the middle of the nave, in front of the great altar: the mistresses laid their wreaths on it, the children covered it with flowers, and the people all about, with lighted candles in their hands, began to chant the prayers in the vast and gloomy church. Then, all of a sudden, when the priest had said the last amen, the candles were extinguished, and all went away in haste, and the mistress was left alone. Poor mistress, who was so kind to me, who had so much patience, who had toiled for so many years! She has left her little books to her scholars, and everything which she possessed,—to one an inkstand, to another a little picture; and two days before her death, she said to the head-master that he was not to allow the smallest of them to go to her funeral, because she did not wish them to cry.

She has done good, she has suffered, she is dead! Poor mistress, left alone in that dark church! Farewell! Farewell forever, my kind friend, sad and sweet memory of my infancy!

THANKS.

Wednesday, 28th.

My poor schoolmistress wanted to finish her year of school: she departed only three days before the end of the lessons. Day after to-morrow we go once more to the schoolroom to hear the reading of the monthly story, Shipwreck, and then—it is over. On Saturday, the first of July, the examinations begin. And then another year, the fourth, is past! And if my mistress had not died, it would have passed well.

I thought over all that I had known on the preceding October, and it seems to me that I know a good deal more: I have so many new things in my mind; I can say and write what I think better than I could then; I can also do the sums of many grown-up men who know nothing about it, and help them in their affairs; and I understand much more: I understand nearly everything that I read. I am satisfied. But how many people have urged me on and helped me to learn, one in one way, and another in another, at home, at school, in the street,—everywhere where I have been and where I have seen anything! And now, I thank you all. I thank you first, my good teacher, for having been so indulgent and affectionate with me; for you every new acquisition of mine was a labor, for which I now rejoice and of which I am proud. I thank you, Derossi, my admirable companion, for your prompt and kind explanations, for you have made me understand many of the most difficult things, and overcome stumbling-blocks at examinations; and you, too, Stardi, you brave and strong boy, who have showed me how a will of iron succeeds in everything: and you, kind, generous Garrone, who make all those who know you kind and generous too; and you too, Precossi and Coretti, who have given me an example of courage in suffering, and of serenity in toil, I render thanks to you: I render thanks to all the rest. But above all, I thank thee, my father, thee, my first teacher, my first friend, who hast given me so many wise counsels, and hast taught me so many things, whilst thou wert working for me, always concealing thy sadness from me, and seeking in all ways to render study easy, and life beautiful to me; and thee, sweet mother, my beloved and blessed guardian angel, who hast tasted all my joys, and suffered all my bitternesses, who hast studied, worked, and wept with me, with one hand caressing my brow, and with the other pointing me to heaven. I kneel before you, as when I was a little child; I thank you for all the tenderness which you have instilled into my mind through twelve years of sacrifices and of love.

SHIPWRECK.

(Last Monthly Story.)

One morning in the month of December, several years ago, there sailed from the port of Liverpool a huge steamer, which had on board two hundred persons, including a crew of sixty. The captain and nearly all the sailors were English. Among the passengers there were several Italians,—three gentlemen, a priest, and a company of musicians. The steamer was bound for the island of Malta. The weather was threatening.

Among the third-class passengers forward, was an Italian lad of a dozen years, small for his age, but robust; a bold, handsome, austere face, of Sicilian type. He was alone near the fore-mast, seated on a coil of cordage, beside a well-worn valise, which contained his effects, and upon which he kept a hand. His face was brown, and his black and wavy hair descended to his shoulders. He was meanly clad, and had a tattered mantle thrown over his shoulders, and an old leather pouch on a cross-belt. He gazed thoughtfully about him at the passengers, the ship, the sailors who were running past, and at the restless sea. He had the appearance of a boy who has recently issued from a great family sorrow,—the face of a child, the expression of a man.

A little after their departure, one of the steamer's crew, an Italian with gray hair, made his appearance on the bow, holding by the hand a little girl; and coming to a halt in front of the little Sicilian, he said to him:—

"Here's a travelling companion for you, Mario." Then he went away.

The girl seated herself on the pile of cordage beside the boy.

They surveyed each other.

"Where are you going?" asked the Sicilian.

The girl replied: "To Malta on the way of Naples." Then she added: "I am going to see my father and mother, who are expecting me. My name is Giulietta Faggiani."

The boy said nothing.

After the lapse of a few minutes, he drew some bread from his pouch, and some dried fruit; the girl had some biscuits: they began to eat.

"Look sharp there!" shouted the Italian sailor, as he passed rapidly; "a lively time is at hand!"

The wind continued to increase, the steamer pitched heavily; but the two children, who did not suffer from seasickness, paid no heed to it. The little girl smiled. She was about the same age as her companion, but was considerably taller, brown of complexion, slender, somewhat sickly, and dressed more than modestly. Her hair was short and curling, she wore a red kerchief over her head, and two hoops of silver in her ears.

As they ate, they talked about themselves and their affairs. The boy had no longer either father or mother. The father, an artisan, had died a few days previously in Liverpool, leaving him alone; and the Italian consul had sent him back to his country, to Palermo, where he had still some distant relatives left. The little girl had been taken to London, the year before, by a widowed aunt, who was very fond of her, and to whom her parents—poor people—had given her for a time, trusting in a promise of an inheritance; but the aunt had died a few months later, run over by an omnibus, without leaving a centesimo; and then she too had had recourse to the consul, who had shipped her to Italy. Both had been recommended to the care of the Italian sailor.—"So," concluded the little maid, "my father and mother thought that I would return rich, and instead I am returning poor. But they will love me all the same. And so will my brothers. I have four, all small. I am the oldest at home. I dress them. They will be greatly delighted to see me. They will come in on tiptoe—The sea is ugly!"

Then she asked the boy: "And are you going to stay with your relatives?"

"Yes—if they want me."

"Do not they love you?"

"I don't know."

"I shall be thirteen at Christmas," said the girl.

Then they began to talk about the sea, and the people on board around them. They remained near each other all day, exchanging a few words now and then. The passengers thought them brother and sister. The girl knitted at a stocking, the boy meditated, the sea continued to grow rougher. At night, as they parted to go to bed, the girl said to Mario, "Sleep well."

"No one will sleep well, my poor children!" exclaimed the Italian sailor as he ran past, in answer to a call from the captain. The boy was on the point of replying with a "good night" to his little friend, when an unexpected dash of water dealt him a violent blow, and flung him against a seat.

"My dear, you are bleeding!" cried the girl, flinging herself upon him. The passengers who were making their escape below, paid no heed to them. The child knelt down beside Mario, who had been stunned by the blow, wiped the blood from his brow, and pulling the red kerchief from her hair, she bound it about his head, then pressed his head to her breast in order to knot the ends, and thus received a spot of blood on her yellow bodice just above the girdle. Mario shook himself and rose:

"Are you better?" asked the girl.

"I no longer feel it," he replied.

"Sleep well," said Giulietta.

"Good night," responded Mario. And they descended two neighboring sets of steps to their dormitories.

The sailor's prediction proved correct. Before they could get to sleep, a frightful tempest had broken loose. It was like the sudden onslaught of furious great horses, which in the course of a few minutes split one mast, and carried away three boats which were suspended to the falls, and four cows on the bow, like leaves. On board the steamer there arose a confusion, a terror, an uproar, a tempest of shrieks, wails, and prayers, sufficient to make the hair stand on end. The tempest continued to increase in fury all night. At daybreak it was still increasing. The formidable waves dashing the craft transversely, broke over the deck, and smashed, split, and hurled everything into the sea. The platform which screened the engine was destroyed, and the water dashed in with a terrible roar; the fires were extinguished; the engineers fled; huge and impetuous streams forced their way everywhere. A voice of thunder shouted:

"To the pumps!" It was the captain's voice. The sailors rushed to the pumps. But a sudden burst of the sea, striking the vessel on the stern, demolished bulwarks and hatchways, and sent a flood within.

All the passengers, more dead than alive, had taken refuge in the grand saloon. At last the captain made his appearance.

"Captain! Captain!" they all shrieked in concert. "What is taking place? Where are we? Is there any hope! Save us!"

The captain waited until they were silent, then said coolly; "Let us be resigned."

One woman uttered a cry of "Mercy!" No one else could give vent to a sound. Terror had frozen them all. A long time passed thus, in a silence like that of the grave. All gazed at each other with blanched faces. The sea continued to rage and roar. The vessel pitched heavily. At one moment the captain attempted to launch one life-boat; five sailors entered it; the boat sank; the waves turned it over, and two of the sailors were drowned, among them the Italian: the others contrived with difficulty to catch hold of the ropes and draw themselves up again.

After this, the sailors themselves lost all courage. Two hours later, the vessel was sunk in the water to the height of the port-holes.

A terrible spectacle was presented meanwhile on the deck. Mothers pressed their children to their breasts in despair; friends exchanged embraces and bade each other farewell; some went down into the cabins that they might die without seeing the sea. One passenger shot himself in the head with a pistol, and fell headlong down the stairs to the cabin, where he expired. Many clung frantically to each other; women writhed in horrible convulsions. There was audible a chorus of sobs, of infantile laments, of strange and piercing voices; and here and there persons were visible motionless as statues, in stupor, with eyes dilated and sightless,—faces of corpses and madmen. The two children, Giulietta and Mario, clung to a mast and gazed at the sea with staring eyes, as though senseless.

The sea had subsided a little; but the vessel continued to sink slowly. Only a few minutes remained to them.

"Launch the long-boat!" shouted the captain.

A boat, the last that remained, was thrown into the water, and fourteen sailors and three passengers descended into it.

The captain remained on board.

"Come down with us!" they shouted to him from below.

"I must die at my post," replied the captain.

"We shall meet a vessel," the sailors cried to him; "we shall be saved! Come down! you are lost!"

"I shall remain."

"There is room for one more!" shouted the sailors, turning to the other passengers. "A woman!"

A woman advanced, aided by the captain; but on seeing the distance at which the boat lay, she did not feel sufficient courage to leap down, and fell back upon the deck. The other women had nearly all fainted, and were as dead.

"A boy!" shouted the sailors.

At that shout, the Sicilian lad and his companion, who had remained up to that moment petrified as by a supernatural stupor, were suddenly aroused again by a violent instinct to save their lives. They detached themselves simultaneously from the mast, and rushed to the side of the vessel, shrieking in concert: "Take me!" and endeavoring in turn, to drive the other back, like furious beasts.

"The smallest!" shouted the sailors. "The boat is overloaded! The smallest!"

On hearing these words, the girl dropped her arms, as though struck by lightning, and stood motionless, staring at Mario with lustreless eyes.

Mario looked at her for a moment,—saw the spot of blood on her bodice,—remembered—The gleam of a divine thought flashed across his face.

"The smallest!" shouted the sailors in chorus, with imperious impatience. "We are going!"

And then Mario, with a voice which no longer seemed his own, cried: "She is the lighter! It is for you, Giulietta! You have a father and mother! I am alone! I give you my place! Go down!"

"Throw her into the sea!" shouted the sailors.

Mario seized Giulietta by the body, and threw her into the sea.

The girl uttered a cry and made a splash; a sailor seized her by the arm, and dragged her into the boat.

The boy remained at the vessel's side, with his head held high, his hair streaming in the wind,—motionless, tranquil, sublime.

The boat moved off just in time to escape the whirlpool which the vessel produced as it sank, and which threatened to overturn it.

Then the girl, who had remained senseless until that moment, raised her eyes to the boy, and burst into a storm of tears.

"Good by, Mario!" she cried, amid her sobs, with her arms outstretched towards him. "Good by! Good by! Good by!"

"Good by!" replied the boy, raising his hand on high.

The boat went swiftly away across the troubled sea, beneath the dark sky. No one on board the vessel shouted any longer. The water was already lapping the edge of the deck.

Suddenly the boy fell on his knees, with his hands folded and his eyes raised to heaven.

The girl covered her face.

When she raised her head again, she cast a glance over the sea: the vessel was no longer there.



JULY.

THE LAST PAGE FROM MY MOTHER.

Saturday, 1st.

SO the year has come to an end, Enrico, and it is well that you should be left on the last day with the image of the sublime child, who gave his life for his friend. You are now about to part from your teachers and companions, and I must impart to you some sad news. The separation will last not three months, but forever. Your father, for reasons connected with his profession, is obliged to leave Turin, and we are all to go with him.

We shall go next autumn. You will have to enter a new school. You are sorry for this, are you not? For I am sure that you love your old school, where twice a day, for the space of four years, you have experienced the pleasure of working, where for so long a time, you have seen, at stated hours, the same boys, the same teachers, the same parents, and your own father or mother awaiting you with a smile; your old school, where your mind first unclosed, where you have found so many kind companions, where every word that you have heard has had your good for its object, and where you have not suffered a single displeasure which has not been useful to you! Then bear this affection with you, and bid these boys a hearty farewell. Some of them will experience misfortunes, they will soon lose their fathers and mothers; others will die young; others, perhaps, will nobly shed their blood in battle; many will become brave and honest workmen, the fathers of honest and industrious workmen like themselves; and who knows whether there may not also be among them one who will render great services to his country, and make his name glorious. Then part from them with affection; leave a portion of your soul here, in this great family into which you entered as a baby, and from which you emerge a young lad, and which your father and mother loved so dearly, because you were so much beloved by it.

School is a mother, my Enrico. It took you from my arms when you could hardly speak, and now it returns you to me, strong, good, studious; blessings on it, and may you never forget it more, my son. Oh, it is impossible that you should forget it! You will become a man, you will make the tour of the world, you will see immense cities and wonderful monuments, and you will remember many among them; but that modest white edifice, with those closed shutters and that little garden, where the first flower of your intelligence budded, you will perceive until the last day of your life, as I shall always behold the house in which I heard your voice for the first time.

THY MOTHER.

THE EXAMINATIONS.

Tuesday, 4th.

Here are the examinations at last! Nothing else is to be heard under discussion, in the streets in the vicinity of the school, from boys, fathers, mothers, and even tutors; examinations, points, themes, averages, dismissals, promotions: all utter the same words. Yesterday morning there was composition; this morning there is arithmetic. It was touching to see all the parents, as they conducted their sons to school, giving them their last advice in the street, and many mothers accompanied their sons to their seats, to see whether the inkstand was filled, and to try their pens, and they still continued to hover round the entrance, and to say:

"Courage! Attention! I entreat you."

Our assistant-master was Coatti, the one with the black beard, who mimics the voice of a lion, and never punishes any one. There were boys who were white with fear. When the master broke the seal of the letter from the town-hall, and drew out the problem, not a breath was audible. He announced the problem loudly, staring now at one, now at another, with terrible eyes; but we understood that had he been able to announce the answer also, so that we might all get promoted, he would have been delighted.

After an hour of work many began to grow weary, for the problem was difficult. One cried. Crossi dealt himself blows on the head. And many of them are not to blame, poor boys, for not knowing, for they have not had much time to study, and have been neglected by their parents. But Providence was at hand. You should have seen Derossi, and what trouble he took to help them; how ingenious he was in getting a figure passed on, and in suggesting an operation, without allowing himself to be caught; so anxious for all that he appeared to be our teacher himself. Garrone, too, who is strong in arithmetic, helped all he could; and he even assisted Nobis, who, finding himself in a quandary, was quite gentle.

Stardi remained motionless for more than an hour, with his eyes on the problem, and his fists on his temples, and then he finished the whole thing in five minutes. The master made his round among the benches, saying:—

"Be calm! Be calm! I advise you to be calm!"

And when he saw that any one was discouraged, he opened his mouth, as though about to devour him, in imitation of a lion, in order to make him laugh and inspire him with courage. Toward eleven o'clock, peeping down through the blinds, I perceived many parents pacing the street in their impatience. There was Precossi's father, in his blue blouse, who had deserted his shop, with his face still quite black. There was Crossi's mother, the vegetable-vender; and Nelli's mother, dressed in black, who could not stand still.

A little before mid-day, my father arrived and raised his eyes to my window; my dear father! At noon we had all finished. And it was a sight at the close of school! Every one ran to meet the boys, to ask questions, to turn over the leaves of the copy-books to compare them with the work of their comrades.

"How many operations? What is the total? And subtraction? And the answer? And the punctuation of decimals?"

All the masters were running about hither and thither, summoned in a hundred directions.

My father instantly took from my hand the rough copy, looked at it, and said, "That's well."

Beside us was the blacksmith, Precossi, who was also inspecting his son's work, but rather uneasily, and not comprehending it. He turned to my father:—

"Will you do me the favor to tell me the total?"

My father read the number. The other gazed and reckoned. "Brave little one!" he exclaimed, in perfect content. And my father and he gazed at each other for a moment with a kindly smile, like two friends. My father offered his hand, and the other shook it; and they parted, saying, "Farewell until the oral examination."

"Until the oral examination."

After proceeding a few paces, we heard a falsetto voice which made us turn our heads. It was the blacksmith-ironmonger singing.

THE LAST EXAMINATION.

Friday, 7th.

This morning we had our oral examinations. At eight o'clock we were all in the schoolroom, and at a quarter past they began to call us, four at a time, into the big hall, where there was a large table covered with a green cloth; round it were seated the head-master and four other masters, among them our own. I was one of the first called out. Poor master! how plainly I perceived this morning that you are really fond of us! While they were interrogating the others, he had no eyes for any one but us. He was troubled when we were uncertain in our replies; he grew serene when we gave a fine answer; he heard everything, and made us a thousand signs with his hand and head, to say to us, "Good!—no!—pay attention!—slower!—courage!"

He would have suggested everything to us, had he been able to talk. If the fathers of all these pupils had been in his place, one after the other, they could not have done more. They would have cried "Thanks!" ten times, in the face of them all. And when the other masters said to me, "That is well; you may go," his eyes beamed with pleasure.

I returned at once to the schoolroom to wait for my father. Nearly all were still there. I sat down beside Garrone. I was not at all cheerful; I was thinking that it was the last time that we should be near each other for an hour. I had not yet told Garrone that I should not go through the fourth grade with him, that I was to leave Turin with my father. He knew nothing. And he sat there, doubled up together, with his big head reclining on the desk, making ornaments round the photograph of his father, who was dressed like a machinist, and who is a tall, large man, with a bull neck and a serious, honest look, like himself. And as he sat thus bent together, with his blouse a little open in front, I saw on his bare and robust breast the gold cross which Nelli's mother had presented to him, when she learned that he protected her son. But it was necessary to tell him sometime that I was going away. I said to him:—

"Garrone, my father is going away from Turin this autumn, for good. He asked me if I were going, also. I replied that I was."

"You will not go through the fourth grade with us?" he said to me. I answered "No."

Then he did not speak to me for a while, but went on with his drawing. Then, without raising his head, he inquired:

"And shall you remember your comrades of the third grade?"

"Yes," I told him, "all of them; but you more than all the rest. Who can forget you?"

He looked at me fixedly and seriously, with a gaze that said a thousand things, but he said nothing; he only offered me his left hand, pretending to continue his drawing with the other; and I pressed it between mine, that strong and loyal hand. At that moment the master entered hastily, with a red face, and said, in a low, quick voice, with a joyful intonation:—

"Good, all is going well now, let the rest come forwards; bravi, boys! Courage! I am extremely well satisfied." And, in order to show us his contentment, and to exhilarate us, as he went out in haste, he made a motion of stumbling and of catching at the wall, to prevent a fall; he whom we had never seen laugh! The thing appeared so strange, that, instead of laughing, all remained stupefied; all smiled, no one laughed.

Well, I do not know,—that act of childish joy caused both pain and tenderness. All his reward was that moment of cheerfulness,—it was the compensation for nine months of kindness, patience, and even sorrow! For that he had toiled so long; for that he had so often gone to give lessons to a sick boy, poor teacher! That and nothing more was what he demanded of us, in exchange for so much affection and so much care!

And, now, it seems to me that I shall always see him in the performance of that act, when I recall him through many years; and when I have become a man, he will still be alive, and we shall meet, and I will tell him about that deed which touched my heart; and I will give him a kiss on his white head.

FAREWELL.

Monday, 10th.

At one o'clock we all assembled once more for the last time at the school, to hear the results of the examinations, and to take our little promotion books. The street was thronged with parents, who had even invaded the big hall, and many had made their way into the class-rooms, thrusting themselves even to the master's desk: in our room they filled the entire space between the wall and the front benches. There were Garrone's father, Derossi's mother, the blacksmith Precossi, Coretti, Signora Nelli, the vegetable-vender, the father of the little mason, Stardi's father, and many others whom I had never seen; and on all sides a whispering and a hum were audible, that seemed to proceed from the square outside.

The master entered, and a profound silence ensued. He had the list in his hand, and began to read at once.

"Abatucci, promoted, sixty seventieths. Archini, promoted, fifty-five seventieths."—The little mason promoted; Crossi promoted. Then he read loudly:—

"Ernesto Derossi, promoted, seventy seventieths, and the first prize."

All the parents who were there—and they all knew him—said:—

"Bravo, bravo, Derossi!" And he shook his golden curls, with his easy and beautiful smile, and looked at his mother, who made him a salute with her hand.

Garoffi, Garrone, the Calabrian promoted. Then three or four sent back; and one of them began to cry because his father, who was at the entrance, made a menacing gesture at him. But the master said to the father:—

"No, sir, excuse me; it is not always the boy's fault; it is often his misfortune. And that is the case here." Then he read:—

"Nelli, promoted, sixty-two seventieths." His mother sent him a kiss from her fan. Stardi, promoted, with sixty-seven seventieths! but, at hearing this fine fate, he did not even smile, or remove his fists from his temples. The last was Votini, who had come very finely dressed and brushed,—promoted. After reading the last name, the master rose and said:—

"Boys, this is the last time that we shall find ourselves assembled together in this room. We have been together a year, and now we part good friends, do we not? I am sorry to part from you, my dear boys." He interrupted himself, then he resumed: "If I have sometimes failed in patience, if sometimes, without intending it, I have been unjust, or too severe, forgive me."

"No, no!" cried the parents and many of the scholars,—"no, master, never!"

"Forgive me," repeated the master, "and think well of me. Next year you will not be with me; but I shall see you again, and you will always abide in my heart. Farewell until we meet again, boys!"

So saying, he stepped forward among us, and we all offered him our hands, as we stood up on the seats, and grasped him by the arms, and by the skirts of his coat; many kissed him; fifty voices cried in concert:

"Farewell until we meet again, teacher!—Thanks, teacher!—May your health be good!—Remember us!"

When I went out, I felt oppressed by the commotion. We all ran out confusedly. Boys were emerging from all the other class-rooms also. There was a great mixing and tumult of boys and parents, bidding the masters and the mistresses good by, and exchanging greetings among themselves. The mistress with the red feather had four or five children on top of her, and twenty around her, depriving her of breath; and they had half torn off the little nun's bonnet, and thrust a dozen bunches of flowers in the button-holes of her black dress, and in her pockets. Many were making much of Robetti, who had that day, for the first time, abandoned his crutches. On all sides the words were audible:—

"Good by until next year!—Until the twentieth of October!" We greeted each other, too. Ah! now all disagreements were forgotten at that moment! Votini, who had always been so jealous of Derossi, was the first to throw himself on him with open arms. I saluted the little mason, and kissed him, just at the moment when he was making me his last hare's face, dear boy! I saluted Precossi. I saluted Garoffi, who announced to me the approach of his last lottery, and gave me a little paper weight of majolica, with a broken corner; I said farewell to all the others. It was beautiful to see poor Nelli clinging to Garrone, so that he could not be taken from him. All thronged around Garrone, and it was, "Farewell, Garrone!—Good by until we meet!" And they touched him, and pressed his hands, and made much of him, that brave, sainted boy; and his father was perfectly amazed, as he looked on and smiled.

Garrone was the last one whom I embraced in the street, and I stifled a sob against his breast: he kissed my brow. Then I ran to my father and mother. My father asked me: "Have you spoken to all of your comrades?"

I replied that I had. "If there is any one of them whom you have wronged, go and ask his pardon, and beg him to forget it. Is there no one?"

"No one," I answered.

"Farewell, then," said my father with a voice full of emotion, bestowing a last glance on the schoolhouse. And my mother repeated: "Farewell!"

And I could not say anything.



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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The original language and spelling have been retained, except where noted. Minimal typographical errors concerning punctuation have been corrected without notes.

The signatures at the end of the following sections

MY MOTHER. POETRY. GARIBALDI. ITALY. MY FATHER. THE LAST PAGE FROM MY MOTHER.

are missing in the original text and have been added according to the Italian editions of the book.

The [oe] ligature has been rendered as "oe".

The following changes were made to the original text (the original text is on the first line, the correction is on the following line):

97: two battalions of Italian infantry and two cannon two battalions of Italian infantry and two cannons

117: replied, that the the man was a mason who had replied, that the man was a mason who had

177: Feruccio stood listening three paces away, leaning Ferruccio stood listening three paces away, leaning

201: with the wound on his neck, who was with Garabaldi, with the wound on his neck, who was with Garibaldi,

292: which anounced the field artillery; and then the which announced the field artillery; and then the

* * * * *

THE END