Of all my experiences among the Tuscan peasants of the Pistoiese, none, perhaps, was more thoroughly characteristic than a three days’ visit at a farm-house just above the village I was staying in. I had just returned from the woods with my hammock, and was feeling rather listless in the absence of my peasant companion, when the farmer’s wife, who happened to be in the village that day, said to me, half joking, half in earnest:—

“Come home with me to the Cavi, Signorina; come and sleep there to-night.”

I jumped at the proposal, borrowed a big kerchief from my landlady, put a few things into it in the most approved peasant fashion, and we started off together.

I had already been to this farm with some friends for a picnic. On that day the people were threshing and treading the straw; and the stone-paved aia or threshing-floor before the house was bright with the corn, and resonant with the sound of the flail. Then, when the sun’s rays were less strong—for the peasants only thresh in the bright sunlight—two cows and a donkey were produced, and led round and round, knee-deep in the straw, to break it up for their winter food. I had been much struck at the time by the extreme primitiveness of the labour, though I could not help confessing that the swinging flails, yellow corn, and lazily moving animals formed a very much more picturesque contrast to the low grey stone house, and the blackness of its three open doorways, than any threshing-machine could have done.

Nothing of the kind was going on, however, when my hostess and I emerged from the chestnut woods on this cool September evening. The farmer, just back from his digging in the fields,—there are no ploughs,—was taking a meditative walk in front of the house.

He came forward to meet us, accompanied by his two dogs, and welcomed us with much hospitable grace. One of his sons was near him, watching the two cows graze, and at the same time lazily stripping chestnut leaves for the creatures’ fodder off a heap of boughs he had cut. While I was chatting to father and son, my hostess disappeared, and presently came down again, dressed in an old petticoat, chemise, and untidy slippers. She took up a basket of potatoes, and we both set to work to scrape and slice some of them for supper—town people could not possibly eat potatoes baked in their skins, she thought. As we chatted she suddenly exclaimed:—

“See how nice it is to live in the country, Signorina!”

“Why?” I asked, curious to hear what poetical thought had been seething in her brain.

“Well, in the village, you see, you have to wear a dress, and go all clean and tidy, with boots on, too; but here one can go about so nice and dirty.”

She had evidently expressed her inmost soul, for she repeated, looking round at the blue hills, and inhaling the cool, fragrant air:—“So nice and dirty one can be here.”

By this time it was getting towards twenty-four o’clock. Twenty-four o’clock is a movable hour, and depends solely on the sun. In the height of summer it is at eight o’clock, and then retrogrades by a quarter of an hour at a time till it reaches five, when it begins to advance again. At the end of September, when I left, le venti quattro were at half-past six. The peasants’ supper-time is regulated by this sliding-scale, much to the disturbance of the appetite of those who are accustomed to eat by the clock and not by the sun.

“Now come and help me cook the supper,” said my hostess, as we moved towards the house. “See how many fine drawing-rooms I have,” she continued, with a smile.

With that she threw open the first room, and we entered the metato. This is the drying room and storehouse for the chestnuts. The floor is of earth, stamped hard. Above one’s head, stretching from one side of the room to the other, and forming a sort of ceiling, are narrow strips of wood, laid loosely side by side. On these the chestnuts are piled just as they come from the woods, and the heat and smoke of the fires which are lighted on the floor beneath, penetrating through the interstices, dry the chestnuts and split the shells. From the metato we passed through a door on the right into the second “drawing-room,” the kitchen. This, as usual, was a large, low, raftered room, with a small window and a big hearth. This kitchen boasted a chimney, however, which carried away, at any rate, part of the smoke; and, more wonderful still, there was at the back a tiny scullery, with sink and plate-racks. For my host was a rich man; not only actual possessor of his farm, but owner of another podere higher up on the mountain-side. Passing to the right again, and crossing a small entrance-hall, now full of sacks of grain, we entered the drawing-room par excellence, the room in which the family have their meals. This room was nearly filled up by the huge wooden table; but there was still room for a large cupboard with glass doors, behind which the best crockery was displayed, while on the walls hung bad portraits, offered for my careful inspection, of various members of the family. A dozen low wooden steps led from the sacks of grain to the upper regions. These consisted of four bedrooms, the plank floors of which gaped so widely that one could see and hear everything that went on below. Everywhere, in metato, kitchen, hall, parlour, and bedrooms, were coloured prints of the Madonna or of some saint; and each bedroom contained, in addition, a little glass box, enclosing a wax baby, surrounded by tinsel flowers. For this is a devout family, fond of processions and tapers. The mother lights a lamp before an image of the Madonna every Saturday; and she told me, with delight, how she had prayed to a certain saint when her daughter’s baby was born, intimating that that was why the child was such a fine one.

Our business lay now, however, in the kitchen. It was already getting dark, but a fire was blazing brightly on the hearth, with a copper-lined cauldron suspended over it from a chain in the chimney.

“We are going to have maccheroni this evening,” said my hostess. “I rolled them out before I left home this morning. But we must cut them first,” she added, as she produced the long strips of home-made unbaked paste.

We accordingly cut them into pieces about an inch square, and then, taking a pile in our hands, threw them one by one into the boiling salt and water of the cauldron. While they were cooking we made the tomato sauce, and the farmer grated the cheese; and by the time these were ready, and the table laid, the maccheroni could be taken off the fire.

It was now quite dark, the only light came from the dancing flames; and the whole family, including the broad-shouldered shepherdess, assembled in the kitchen to watch the progress of events. By the side of the fire sat the daughter-in-law, a beautiful, fair-haired, refined-looking woman, unswaddling her baby; in the middle of the floor, lighted from the right by the fire, my little grey-haired hostess was kneeling in front of the cauldron and fishing up the maccheroni, which she put in layers into a huge red earthern pipkin; and on the other side of the cauldron was the farmer with the tomato sauce, some of which he poured into the pipkin as each layer was completed, adding cheese, pepper and salt. Then there were the two sons, Beppe, low-built and square-cut, and Sandro, the baby’s father, more slender, more courteous in manner, but also more lazy; and lastly, two dogs and two cats who prowled on the outside of the group, in eager expectation of their supper.

The maccheroni being now all transferred to the pipkin, the water was given to the dogs and cats, and we went into the parlour to eat. Needless to say there was no dressing for dinner. The men came in their hats and shirt-sleeves, the women in their bright kerchiefs. Yet certain rules of etiquette were strictly observed. The system of complimenti, for instance, was carried to an extent that seemed ridiculous to English eyes. The mother would fill the son’s plate, he would declare he could not eat so much, she would continue to press him, he to refuse, until the voices grew quite loud and excited. When it came to serving the shepherdess, things came almost to a good-natured quarrel. She was a low-built, broad-shouldered, broad-backed girl of about fifteen, of almost gigantic strength, who strode along in her hob-nailed shoes as though she had the seven-leagued boots on. I was evidently a great novelty to her, for she could scarcely eat for looking at me, and presently set the table in a roar of laughter by coming out with a:—“No, thank you,” instead of the usual blank “No.” Opposite to me sat Sandro with his wife and baby. Charming indeed was it to see the way in which the young fellow fondled and nursed the little one. When he came home from the fields, the first thing he did was to take it in his arms, and sit down on the doorstep in the sunlight; at supper-time he neglected himself to play with it and feed it. There is a great fund of kindness in the Italian character, crossed, however, by a vein of strange hard cruelty, arising perhaps from a remarkable want of dramatic imagination. Sandro and his wife sat side by side according to old-established custom. When a son marries, his housekeeping amounts to this: a double-bed and a large cupboard are put into the biggest bedroom, and husband and wife sit next each other at table. If there are several married sons, all the families live together until the quarrels are so intolerable as to drive them apart.

After supper, at about a quarter past eight, all the family went to bed. Three of the four bedrooms opened out of each other, and in the smallest of these three, the middle one, was a single bed in which the shepherdess usually slept. This was now reserved for me. The bed, the Madonna, and a rickety chest of drawers, were the only furniture considered necessary. In the room on the right slept Beppe and Sandro; in that on the left, which one entered through a doorway guiltless of a door, were the shepherdess and Sandro’s wife, Maria. Everyone was in bed in half a minute; for it was summer-time, and they “slept like beasts,” as my hostess put it, without even saying their rosary. “Good-night,” called out Beppe and Sandro. “Good-night,” answered everyone else, and then there was silence till between four and five next morning.

It was hardly dawn when Sandro’s voice was heard:—“Emilia, Emilia.” The shepherdess gave a grunt, tumbled on to the floor, and a moment later strode fully dressed across my room, clamped downstairs and went out. Maria slept longer, for the baby had kept her awake. As a matter of fact, the little thing could scarcely be expected to sleep, for it had been kept under the bedclothes all day. Italian peasant-babies have not a very pleasant life of it. In the morning they are tightly swaddled, put into bed under a wooden frame, and entirely covered with the clothes. There they lie in the dark, sleeping or screaming till about midday when they are taken up, reswaddled, fed, and put to bed again till the evening. Then the same process is repeated, and they are expected to sleep all night. This particular baby was washed about twice a week, if indeed the term “washing” can be applied to the operation. The mother sits down by the fire, and puts a glass of wine by her. She then fills her mouth with wine, puts it out into her hand, and rubs the baby, which screams violently.

At about eight o’clock the men came in from the fields, the cauldron was suspended from the chain, water was boiled, and my host set to work to make the polenta. The maize flour is added gradually to the boiling water until the mixture is so thick that none but a strong man can stir it. Then it is turned out on to a board kept for the purpose, cut into slices with a string, and eaten smoking hot with cheese. There are no plates, of course; all stand round and help themselves. Maize flour, chestnut flour, lentils, cheese, and beans, are the staple food of the peasants, with now and then a fowl to celebrate some specially great festa. Milk they never seem to drink, butter they rarely make; they use their dairy produce exclusively for cheese.

These Tuscan peasants may be called an industrious race; that is to say, they are never entirely idle. At the same time they do not work in such a way as to make it tiring to watch them; they take things very easily. A strong, well-built man, for instance, will be contentedly stripping chestnut-leaves off the branches for the cows, or leaning against a tree watching the animals feed. In another part of the field a woman will be taking advantage of the gusts of wind to folare her grain, that is, to complete the winnowing of it. She spreads a sheet on the ground, empties a sack of corn on to one corner of it, fills a heavy wooden tray with the grain, puts it on her head, and turns to catch the wind. As soon as she feels a gust—folata—she lets the corn fall in a narrow trickling stream on to the sheet; the chaff is blown away in the descent, and the winnowing is completed. The very poor have a terribly hard time of it, however, for they do the work of mules and donkeys, carrying great loads of wood on their backs for many miles over the hills; and no one thinks of mending or making roads for them. An old woman I was once talking to told me of the huge burdens she used to carry in her youth.

“The roads were bad then,” she said, but added naÏvely, “they are better now; they were mended for the horses.”

But to return to my hosts. On Sunday morning, the day being a festa, the house received its weekly apology for a sweep, the women put on dresses and kerchiefs, and went so far as to comb their hair, and we started for the village, to go to Mass. It was very picturesque to watch the parties of rosy, healthy peasant women as they came along the road, in their bright aprons and head-gear. In one party was Beppe’s intended bride.

“Come to Rivoreta, and see me married, Signorina,” said she. “Do come.”

And with many promises that I would do so if possible, I took leave of my kind friends.[9]