Friday, 4th.

There had been but two days of vacation, yet it seemed to me as though I had been a long time without seeing Garrone. The more I know him, the better I like him; and so it is with all the rest, except with the overbearing, who have nothing to say to him, because he does not permit them to exhibit their oppression. Every time that a big boy raises his hand against a little one, the little one shouts, “Garrone!” and the big one stops striking him. His father is an engine-driver on the railway; he has begun school late, because he was ill for two years. He is the tallest and the strongest of the class; he lifts a bench with one hand; he is always eating; and he is good. Whatever he is asked for,—a pencil, rubber, paper, or penknife,—he lends or gives it; and he neither talks nor laughs in school: he always sits perfectly motionless on a bench that is too narrow for him, with his spine curved forward, and his big head between his shoulders; and when I look at him, he smiles at me with his eyes half closed, as much as to say, “Well, Enrico, are we friends?” He makes me laugh, because, tall and broad as he is, he has a jacket, trousers, and sleeves which are too small for him, and too short; a cap which will not stay on his head; a threadbare cloak; coarse shoes; and a necktie which is always twisted into a cord. Dear Garrone! it needs but one glance in thy face to inspire love for thee. All the little boys would like to be near his bench. He knows arithmetic well. He carries his books bound together with a strap of red leather. He has a knife, with a mother-of-pearl handle, which he found in the field for military manoeuvres, last year, and one day he cut his finger to the bone; but no one in school envies him it, and no one breathes a word about it at home, for fear of alarming his parents. He lets us say anything to him in jest, and he never takes it ill; but woe to any one who says to him, “That is not true,” when he affirms a thing: then fire flashes from his eyes, and he hammers down blows enough to split the bench. Saturday morning he gave a soldo to one of the upper first class, who was crying in the middle of the street, because his own had been taken from him, and he could not buy his copy-book. For the last three days he has been working over a letter of eight pages, with pen ornaments on the margins, for the saint’s day of his mother, who often comes to get him, and who, like himself, is tall and large and sympathetic. The master is always glancing at him, and every time that he passes near him he taps him on the neck with his hand, as though he were a good, peaceable young bull. I am very fond of him. I am happy when I press his big hand, which seems to be the hand of a man, in mine. I am almost certain that he would risk his life to save that of a comrade; that he would allow himself to be killed in his defence, so clearly can I read his eyes; and although he always seems to be grumbling with that big voice of his, one feels that it is a voice that comes from a gentle heart.

THE CHARCOAL-MAN AND THE GENTLEMAN.

Monday, 7th.

Garrone would certainly never have uttered the words which Carlo Nobis spoke yesterday morning to Betti. Carlo Nobis is proud, because his father is a great gentleman; a tall gentleman, with a black beard, and very serious, who accompanies his son to school nearly every day. Yesterday morning Nobis quarrelled with Betti, one of the smallest boys, and the son of a charcoal-man, and not knowing what retort to make, because he was in the wrong, said to him vehemently, “Your father is a tattered beggar!” Betti reddened up to his very hair, and said nothing, but the tears came to his eyes; and when he returned home, he repeated the words to his father; so the charcoal-dealer, a little man, who was black all over, made his appearance at the afternoon session, leading his boy by the hand, in order to complain to the master. While he was making his complaint, and every one was silent, the father of Nobis, who was taking off his son’s coat at the entrance, as usual, entered on hearing his name pronounced, and demanded an explanation.

“This workman has come,” said the master, “to complain that your son Carlo said to his boy, ‘Your father is a tattered beggar.’”

Nobis’s father frowned and reddened slightly. Then he asked his son, “Did you say that?”

His son, who was standing in the middle of the school, with his head hanging, in front of little Betti, made no reply.

Then his father grasped him by one arm and pushed him forward, facing Betti, so that they nearly touched, and said to him, “Beg his pardon.”

The charcoal-man tried to interpose, saying, “No, no!” but the gentleman paid no heed to him, and repeated to his son, “Beg his pardon. Repeat my words. ‘I beg your pardon for the insulting, foolish, and ignoble words which I uttered against your father, whose hand my father would feel himself honored to press.’”

The charcoal-man made a resolute gesture, as though to say, “I will not allow it.” The gentleman did not second him, and his son said slowly, in a very thread of a voice, without raising his eyes from the ground, “I beg your pardon—for the insulting—foolish—ignoble—words which I uttered against your father, whose hand my father—would feel himself honored—to press.”

Then the gentleman offered his hand to the charcoal-man, who shook it vigorously, and then, with a sudden push, he thrust his son into the arms of Carlo Nobis.

“Do me the favor to place them next each other,” said the gentleman to the master. The master put Betti on Nobis’s bench. When they were seated, the father of Nobis bowed and went away.

The charcoal-man remained standing there in thought for several moments, gazing at the two boys side by side; then he approached the bench, and fixed upon Nobis a look expressive of affection and regret, as though he were desirous of saying something to him, but he did not say anything; he stretched out his hand to bestow a caress upon him, but he did not dare, and merely stroked his brow with his large fingers. Then he made his way to the door, and turning round for one last look, he disappeared.

“Fix what you have just seen firmly in your minds, boys,” said the master; “this is the finest lesson of the year.”

MY BROTHER’S SCHOOLMISTRESS.

Thursday, 10th.

The son of the charcoal-man had been a pupil of that schoolmistress Delcati who had come to see my brother when he was ill, and who had made us laugh by telling us how, two years ago, the mother of this boy had brought to her house a big apronful of charcoal, out of gratitude for her having given the medal to her son; and the poor woman had persisted, and had not been willing to carry the coal home again, and had wept when she was obliged to go away with her apron quite full. And she told us, also, of another good woman, who had brought her a very heavy bunch of flowers, inside of which there was a little hoard of soldi. We had been greatly diverted in listening to her, and so my brother had swallowed his medicine, which he had not been willing to do before. How much patience is necessary with those boys of the lower first, all toothless, like old men, who cannot pronounce their r’s and s’s; and one coughs, and another has the nosebleed, and another loses his shoes under the bench, and another bellows because he has pricked himself with his pen, and another one cries because he has bought copy-book No. 2 instead of No. 1. Fifty in a class, who know nothing, with those flabby little hands, and all of them must be taught to write; they carry in their pockets bits of licorice, buttons, phial corks, pounded brick,—all sorts of little things, and the teacher has to search them; but they conceal these objects even in their shoes. And they are not attentive: a fly enters through the window, and throws them all into confusion; and in summer they bring grass into school, and horn-bugs, which fly round in circles or fall into the inkstand, and then streak the copy-books all over with ink. The schoolmistress has to play mother to all of them, to help them dress themselves, bandage up their pricked fingers, pick up their caps when they drop them, watch to see that they do not exchange coats, and that they do not indulge in cat-calls and shrieks. Poor schoolmistresses! And then the mothers come to complain: “How comes it, signorina, that my boy has lost his pen? How does it happen that mine learns nothing? Why is not my boy mentioned honorably, when he knows so much? Why don’t you have that nail which tore my Piero’s trousers, taken out of the bench?”

Sometimes my brother’s teacher gets into a rage with the boys; and when she can resist no longer, she bites her finger, to keep herself from dealing a blow; she loses patience, and then she repents, and caresses the child whom she has scolded; she sends a little rogue out of school, and then swallows her tears, and flies into a rage with parents who make the little ones fast by way of punishment. Schoolmistress Delcati is young and tall, well-dressed, brown of complexion, and restless; she does everything vivaciously, as though on springs, is affected by a mere trifle, and at such times speaks with great tenderness.

“But the children become attached to you, surely,” my mother said to her.

“Many do,” she replied; “but at the end of the year the majority of them pay no further heed to us. When they are with the masters, they are almost ashamed of having been with us—with a woman teacher. After two years of cares, after having loved a child so much, it makes us feel sad to part from him; but we say to ourselves, ‘Oh, I am sure of that one; he is fond of me.’ But the vacation over, he comes back to school. I run to meet him; ‘Oh, my child, my child!’ And he turns his head away.” Here the teacher interrupted herself. “But you will not do so, little one?” she said, raising her humid eyes, and kissing my brother. “You will not turn aside your head, will you? You will not deny your poor friend?”

MY MOTHER.

Thursday, November 10th.

MY COMPANION CORETTI.

Sunday, 13th.

My father forgave me; but I remained rather sad and then my mother sent me, with the porter’s big son, to take a walk on the Corso. Half-way down the Corso, as we were passing a cart which was standing in front of a shop, I heard some one call me by name: I turned round; it was Coretti, my schoolmate, with chocolate-colored clothes and his catskin cap, all in a perspiration, but merry, with a big load of wood on his shoulders. A man who was standing in the cart was handing him an armful of wood at a time, which he took and carried into his father’s shop, where he piled it up in the greatest haste.

“What are you doing, Coretti?” I asked him.

“Don’t you see?” he answered, reaching out his arms to receive the load; “I am reviewing my lesson.”

I laughed; but he seemed to be serious, and, having grasped the armful of wood, he began to repeat as he ran, “The conjugation of the verb—consists in its variations according to number—according to number and person—”

And then, throwing down the wood and piling it, “according to the time—according to the time to which the action refers.”

And turning to the cart for another armful, “according to the mode in which the action is enunciated.”

It was our grammar lesson for the following day. “What would you have me do?” he said. “I am putting my time to use. My father has gone off with the man on business; my mother is ill. It falls to me to do the unloading. In the meantime, I am going over my grammar lesson. It is a difficult lesson to-day; I cannot succeed in getting it into my head.—My father said that he would be here at seven o’clock to give you your money,” he said to the man with the cart.

The cart drove off. “Come into the shop a minute,” Coretti said to me. I went in. It was a large apartment, full of piles of wood and fagots, with a steelyard on one side.

“This is a busy day, I can assure you,” resumed Coretti; “I have to do my work by fits and starts. I was writing my phrases, when some customers came in. I went to writing again, and behold, that cart arrived. I have already made two trips to the wood market in the Piazza Venezia this morning. My legs are so tired that I cannot stand, and my hands are all swollen. I should be in a pretty pickle if I had to draw!” And as he spoke he set about sweeping up the dry leaves and the straw which covered the brick-paved floor.

“But where do you do your work, Coretti?” I inquired.

“Not here, certainly,” he replied. “Come and see”; and he led me into a little room behind the shop, which serves as a kitchen and dining-room, with a table in one corner, on which there were books and copy-books, and work which had been begun. “Here it is,” he said; “I left the second answer unfinished: with which shoes are made, and belts. Now I will add, and valises.” And, taking his pen, he began to write in his fine hand.

“Is there any one here?” sounded a call from the shop at that moment. It was a woman who had come to buy some little fagots.

“Here I am!” replied Coretti; and he sprang out, weighed the fagots, took the money, ran to a corner to enter the sale in a shabby old account-book, and returned to his work, saying, “Let’s see if I can finish that sentence.” And he wrote, travelling-bags, and knapsacks for soldiers. “Oh, my poor coffee is boiling over!” he exclaimed, and ran to the stove to take the coffee-pot from the fire. “It is coffee for mamma,” he said; “I had to learn how to make it. Wait a while, and we will carry it to her; you’ll see what pleasure it will give her. She has been in bed a whole week.—Conjugation of the verb! I always scald my fingers with this coffee-pot. What is there that I can add after the soldiers’ knapsacks? Something more is needed, and I can think of nothing. Come to mamma.”

He opened a door, and we entered another small room: there Coretti’s mother lay in a big bed, with a white kerchief wound round her head.

“Ah, brave little master!” said the woman to me; “you have come to visit the sick, have you not?”

Meanwhile, Coretti was arranging the pillows behind his mother’s back, readjusting the bedclothes, brightening up the fire, and driving the cat off the chest of drawers.

“Do you want anything else, mamma?” he asked, as he took the cup from her. “Have you taken the two spoonfuls of syrup? When it is all gone, I will make a trip to the apothecary’s. The wood is unloaded. At four o’clock I will put the meat on the stove, as you told me; and when the butter-woman passes, I will give her those eight soldi. Everything will go on well; so don’t give it a thought.”

“Thanks, my son!” replied the woman. “Go, my poor boy!—he thinks of everything.”

She insisted that I should take a lump of sugar; and then Coretti showed me a little picture,—the photograph portrait of his father dressed as a soldier, with the medal for bravery which he had won in 1866, in the troop of Prince Umberto: he had the same face as his son, with the same vivacious eyes and his merry smile.

We went back to the kitchen. “I have found the thing,” said Coretti; and he added on his copy-book, horse-trappings are also made of it. “The rest I will do this evening; I shall sit up later. How happy you are, to have time to study and to go to walk, too!” And still gay and active, he re-entered the shop, and began to place pieces of wood on the horse and to saw them, saying: “This is gymnastics; it is quite different from the throw your arms forwards. I want my father to find all this wood sawed when he gets home; how glad he will be! The worst part of it is that after sawing I make T’s and L’s which look like snakes, so the teacher says. What am I to do? I will tell him that I have to move my arms about. The important thing is to have mamma get well quickly. She is better to-day, thank Heaven! I will study my grammar to-morrow morning at cock-crow. Oh, here’s the cart with logs! To work!”

A small cart laden with logs halted in front of the shop. Coretti ran out to speak to the man, then returned: “I cannot keep your company any longer now,” he said; “farewell until to-morrow. You did right to come and hunt me up. A pleasant walk to you! happy fellow!”

And pressing my hand, he ran to take the first log, and began once more to trot back and forth between the cart and the shop, with a face as fresh as a rose beneath his catskin cap, and so alert that it was a pleasure to see him.

“Happy fellow!” he had said to me. Ah, no, Coretti, no; you are the happier, because you study and work too; because you are of use to your father and your mother; because you are better—a hundred times better—and more courageous than I, my dear schoolmate.

THE HEAD-MASTER.

Friday, 18th.

Coretti was pleased this morning, because his master of the second class, Coatti, a big man, with a huge head of curly hair, a great black beard, big dark eyes, and a voice like a cannon, had come to assist in the work of the monthly examination. He is always threatening the boys that he will break them in pieces and carry them by the nape of the neck to the quÆstor, and he makes all sorts of frightful faces; but he never punishes any one, but always smiles the while behind his beard, so that no one can see it. There are eight masters in all, including Coatti, and a little, beardless assistant, who looks like a boy. There is one master of the fourth class, who is lame and always wrapped up in a big woollen scarf, and who is always suffering from pains which he contracted when he was a teacher in the country, in a damp school, where the walls were dripping with moisture. Another of the teachers of the fourth is old and perfectly white-haired, and has been a teacher of the blind. There is one well-dressed master, with eye-glasses, and a blond mustache, who is called the little lawyer, because, while he was teaching, he studied law and took his diploma; and he is also making a book to teach how to write letters. On the other hand, the one who teaches gymnastics is of a soldierly type, and was with Garibaldi, and has on his neck a scar from a sabre wound received at the battle of Milazzo. Then there is the head-master, who is tall and bald, and wears gold spectacles, with a gray beard that flows down upon his breast; he dresses entirely in black, and is always buttoned up to the chin. He is so kind to the boys, that when they enter the director’s room, all in a tremble, because they have been summoned to receive a reproof, he does not scold them, but takes them by the hand, and tells them so many reasons why they ought not to behave so, and why they should be sorry, and promise to be good, and he speaks in such a kind manner, and in so gentle a voice, that they all come out with red eyes, more confused than if they had been punished. Poor head-master! he is always the first at his post in the morning, waiting for the scholars and lending an ear to the parents; and when the other masters are already on their way home, he is still hovering about the school, and looking out that the boys do not get under the carriage-wheels, or hang about the streets to stand on their heads, or fill their bags with sand or stones; and the moment he makes his appearance at a corner, so tall and black, flocks of boys scamper off in all directions, abandoning their games of coppers and marbles, and he threatens them from afar with his forefinger, with his sad and loving air. No one has ever seen him smile, my mother says, since the death of his son, who was a volunteer in the army: he always keeps the latter’s portrait before his eyes, on a little table in the head-master’s room. He wanted to go away after this misfortune; he prepared his application for retirement to the Municipal Council, and kept it always on his table, putting off sending it from day to day, because it grieved him to leave the boys. But the other day he seemed undecided; and my father, who was in the director’s room with him, was just saying to him, “What a shame it is that you are going away, Signor Director!” when a man entered for the purpose of inscribing the name of a boy who was to be transferred from another schoolhouse to ours, because he had changed his residence. At the sight of this boy, the head-master made a gesture of astonishment, gazed at him for a while, gazed at the portrait that he keeps on his little table, and then stared at the boy again, as he drew him between his knees, and made him hold up his head. This boy resembled his dead son. The head-master said, “It is all right,” wrote down his name, dismissed the father and son, and remained absorbed in thought. “What a pity that you are going away!” repeated my father. And then the head-master took up his application for retirement, tore it in two, and said, “I shall remain.”

THE SOLDIERS.

Tuesday, 22d.

His son had been a volunteer in the army when he died: this is the reason why the head-master always goes to the Corso to see the soldiers pass, when we come out of school. Yesterday a regiment of infantry was passing, and fifty boys began to dance around the band, singing and beating time with their rulers on their bags and portfolios. We were standing in a group on the sidewalk, watching them: Garrone, squeezed into his clothes, which were too tight for him, was biting at a large piece of bread; Votini, the well-dressed boy, who always wears Florence plush; Precossi, the son of the blacksmith, with his father’s jacket; and the Calabrian; and the “little mason”; and Crossi, with his red head; and Franti, with his bold face; and Robetti, too, the son of the artillery captain, the boy who saved the child from the omnibus, and who now walks on crutches. Franti burst into a derisive laugh, in the face of a soldier who was limping. But all at once he felt a man’s hand on his shoulder: he turned round; it was the head-master. “Take care,” said the master to him; “jeering at a soldier when he is in the ranks, when he can neither avenge himself nor reply, is like insulting a man who is bound: it is baseness.”

Franti disappeared. The soldiers were marching by fours, all perspiring and covered with dust, and their guns were gleaming in the sun. The head-master said:—

“You ought to feel kindly towards soldiers, boys. They are our defenders, who would go to be killed for our sakes, if a foreign army were to menace our country to-morrow. They are boys too; they are not many years older than you; and they, too, go to school; and there are poor men and gentlemen among them, just as there are among you, and they come from every part of Italy. See if you cannot recognize them by their faces; Sicilians are passing, and Sardinians, and Neapolitans, and Lombards. This is an old regiment, one of those which fought in 1848. They are not the same soldiers, but the flag is still the same. How many have already died for our country around that banner twenty years before you were born!”

“Here it is!” said Garrone. And in fact, not far off, the flag was visible, advancing, above the heads of the soldiers.

“Do one thing, my sons,” said the head-master; “make your scholar’s salute, with your hand to your brow, when the tricolor passes.”

The flag, borne by an officer, passed before us, all tattered and faded, and with the medals attached to the staff. We put our hands to our foreheads, all together. The officer looked at us with a smile, and returned our salute with his hand.

“Bravi, boys!” said some one behind us. We turned to look; it was an old man who wore in his button-hole the blue ribbon of the Crimean campaign—a pensioned officer. “Bravi!” he said; “you have done a fine deed.”

In the meantime, the band of the regiment had made a turn at the end of the Corso, surrounded by a throng of boys, and a hundred merry shouts accompanied the blasts of the trumpets, like a war-song.

“Bravi!” repeated the old officer, as he gazed upon us; “he who respects the flag when he is little will know how to defend it when he is grown up.”

NELLI’S PROTECTOR.

Wednesday, 23d.

Nelli, too, poor little hunchback! was looking at the soldiers yesterday, but with an air as though he were thinking, “I can never be a soldier!” He is good, and he studies; but he is so puny and wan, and he breathes with difficulty. He always wears a long apron of shining black cloth. His mother is a little blond woman who dresses in black, and always comes to get him at the end of school, so that he may not come out in the confusion with the others, and she caresses him. At first many of the boys ridiculed him, and thumped him on the back with their bags, because he is so unfortunate as to be a hunchback; but he never offered any resistance, and never said anything to his mother, in order not to give her the pain of knowing that her son was the laughing-stock of his companions: they derided him, and he held his peace and wept, with his head laid against the bench.

But one morning Garrone jumped up and said, “The first person who touches Nelli will get such a box on the ear from me that he will spin round three times!”

Franti paid no attention to him; the box on the ear was delivered: the fellow spun round three times, and from that time forth no one ever touched Nelli again. The master placed Garrone near him, on the same bench. They have become friends. Nelli has grown very fond of Garrone. As soon as he enters the schoolroom he looks to see if Garrone is there. He never goes away without saying, “Good by, Garrone,” and Garrone does the same with him.

When Nelli drops a pen or a book under the bench, Garrone stoops quickly, to prevent his stooping and tiring himself, and hands him his book or his pen, and then he helps him to put his things in his bag and to twist himself into his coat. For this Nelli loves him, and gazes at him constantly; and when the master praises Garrone he is pleased, as though he had been praised himself. Nelli must at last have told his mother all about the ridicule of the early days, and what they made him suffer; and about the comrade who defended him, and how he had grown fond of the latter; for this is what happened this morning. The master had sent me to carry to the director, half an hour before the close of school, a programme of the lesson, and I entered the office at the same moment with a small blond woman dressed in black, the mother of Nelli, who said, “Signor Director, is there in the class with my son a boy named Garrone?”

“Yes,” replied the head-master.

“Will you have the goodness to let him come here for a moment, as I have a word to say to him?”

The head-master called the beadle and sent him to the school, and after a minute Garrone appeared on the threshold, with his big, close-cropped head, in perfect amazement. No sooner did she catch sight of him than the woman flew to meet him, threw her arms on his shoulders, and kissed him a great many times on the head, saying:—

“You are Garrone, the friend of my little son, the protector of my poor child; it is you, my dear, brave boy; it is you!” Then she searched hastily in all her pockets, and in her purse, and finding nothing, she detached a chain from her neck, with a small cross, and put it on Garrone’s neck, underneath his necktie, and said to him:—

“Take it! wear it in memory of me, my dear boy; in memory of Nelli’s mother, who thanks and blesses you.”

THE HEAD OF THE CLASS.

Friday, 25th.

Garrone attracts the love of all; Derossi, the admiration. He has taken the first medal; he will always be the first, and this year also; no one can compete with him; all recognize his superiority in all points. He is the first in arithmetic, in grammar, in composition, in drawing; he understands everything on the instant; he has a marvellous memory; he succeeds in everything without effort; it seems as though study were play to him. The teacher said to him yesterday:—

“You have received great gifts from God; all you have to do is not to squander them.” He is, moreover, tall and handsome, with a great crown of golden curls; he is so nimble that he can leap over a bench by resting one hand on it; and he already understands fencing. He is twelve years old, and the son of a merchant; he is always dressed in blue, with gilt buttons; he is always lively, merry, gracious to all, and helps all he can in examinations; and no one has ever dared to do anything disagreeable to him, or to say a rough word to him. Nobis and Franti alone look askance at him, and Votini darts envy from his eyes; but he does not even perceive it. All smile at him, and take his hand or his arm, when he goes about, in his graceful way, to collect the work. He gives away illustrated papers, drawings, everything that is given him at home; he has made a little geographical chart of Calabria for the Calabrian lad; and he gives everything with a smile, without paying any heed to it, like a grand gentleman, and without favoritism for any one. It is impossible not to envy him, not to feel smaller than he in everything. Ah! I, too, envy him, like Votini. And I feel a bitterness, almost a certain scorn, for him, sometimes, when I am striving to accomplish my work at home, and think that he has already finished his, at this same moment, extremely well, and without fatigue. But then, when I return to school, and behold him so handsome, so smiling and triumphant, and hear how frankly and confidently he replies to the master’s questions, and how courteous he is, and how the others all like him, then all bitterness, all scorn, departs from my heart, and I am ashamed of having experienced these sentiments. I should like to be always near him at such times; I should like to be able to do all my school tasks with him: his presence, his voice, inspire me with courage, with a will to work, with cheerfulness and pleasure.

The teacher has given him the monthly story, which will be read to-morrow, to copy,—The Little Vidette of Lombardy. He copied it this morning, and was so much affected by that heroic deed, that his face was all aflame, his eyes humid, and his lips trembling; and I gazed at him: how handsome and noble he was! With what pleasure would I not have said frankly to his face: “Derossi, you are worth more than I in everything! You are a man in comparison with me! I respect you and I admire you!”

THE LITTLE VIDETTE OF LOMBARDY.

(Monthly Story.)

Saturday, 26th.

In 1859, during the war for the liberation of Lombardy, a few days after the battle of Solfarino and San Martino, won by the French and Italians over the Austrians, on a beautiful morning in the month of June, a little band of cavalry of Saluzzo was proceeding at a slow pace along a retired path, in the direction of the enemy, and exploring the country attentively. The troop was commanded by an officer and a sergeant, and all were gazing into the distance ahead of them, with eyes fixed, silent, and prepared at any moment to see the uniforms of the enemy’s advance-posts gleam white before them through the trees. In this order they arrived at a rustic cabin, surrounded by ash-trees, in front of which stood a solitary boy, about twelve years old, who was removing the bark from a small branch with a knife, in order to make himself a stick of it. From one window of the little house floated a large tricolored flag; there was no one inside: the peasants had fled, after hanging out the flag, for fear of the Austrians. As soon as the lad saw the cavalry, he flung aside his stick and raised his cap. He was a handsome boy, with a bold face and large blue eyes and long golden hair: he was in his shirt-sleeves and his breast was bare.

“What are you doing here?” the officer asked him, reining in his horse. “Why did you not flee with your family?”

“I have no family,” replied the boy. “I am a foundling. I do a little work for everybody. I remained here to see the war.”

“Have you seen any Austrians pass?”

“No; not for these three days.”

The officer paused a while in thought; then he leaped from his horse, and leaving his soldiers there, with their faces turned towards the foe, he entered the house and mounted to the roof. The house was low; from the roof only a small tract of country was visible. “It will be necessary to climb the trees,” said the officer, and descended. Just in front of the garden plot rose a very lofty and slender ash-tree, which was rocking its crest in the azure. The officer stood a brief space in thought, gazing now at the tree, and again at the soldiers; then, all of a sudden, he asked the lad:—

“Is your sight good, you monkey?”

“Mine?” replied the boy. “I can spy a young sparrow a mile away.”

“Are you good for a climb to the top of this tree?”

“To the top of this tree? I? I’ll be up there in half a minute.”

“And will you be able to tell me what you see up there—if there are Austrian soldiers in that direction, clouds of dust, gleaming guns, horses?”

“Certainly I shall.”

“What do you demand for this service?”

“What do I demand?” said the lad, smiling. “Nothing. A fine thing, indeed! And then—if it were for the Germans, I wouldn’t do it on any terms; but for our men! I am a Lombard!”

“Good! Then up with you.”

“Wait a moment, until I take off my shoes.”

He pulled off his shoes, tightened the girth of his trousers, flung his cap on the grass, and clasped the trunk of the ash.

“Take care, now!” exclaimed the officer, making a movement to hold him back, as though seized with a sudden terror.

The boy turned to look at him, with his handsome blue eyes, as though interrogating him.

“No matter,” said the officer; “up with you.”

Up went the lad like a cat.

“Keep watch ahead!” shouted the officer to the soldiers.

In a few moments the boy was at the top of the tree, twined around the trunk, with his legs among the leaves, but his body displayed to view, and the sun beating down on his blond head, which seemed to be of gold. The officer could hardly see him, so small did he seem up there.

“Look straight ahead and far away!” shouted the officer.

The lad, in order to see better, removed his right hand from the tree, and shaded his eyes with it.

“What do you see?” asked the officer.

The boy inclined his head towards him, and making a speaking-trumpet of his hand, replied, “Two men on horseback, on the white road.”

“At what distance from here?”

“Half a mile.”

“Are they moving?”

“They are standing still.”

“What else do you see?” asked the officer, after a momentary silence. “Look to the right.” The boy looked to the right.

Then he said: “Near the cemetery, among the trees, there is something glittering. It seems to be bayonets.”

“Do you see men?”

“No. They must be concealed in the grain.”

At that moment a sharp whiz of a bullet passed high up in the air, and died away in the distance, behind the house.

“Come down, my lad!” shouted the officer. “They have seen you. I don’t want anything more. Come down.”

“I’m not afraid,” replied the boy.

“Come down!” repeated the officer. “What else do you see to the left?”

“To the left?”

“Yes, to the left.”

The lad turned his head to the left: at that moment, another whistle, more acute and lower than the first, cut the air. The boy was thoroughly aroused. “Deuce take them!” he exclaimed. “They actually are aiming at me!” The bullet had passed at a short distance from him.

“Down!” shouted the officer, imperious and irritated.

“I’ll come down presently,” replied the boy. “But the tree shelters me. Don’t fear. You want to know what there is on the left?”

“Yes, on the left,” answered the officer; “but come down.”

“On the left,” shouted the lad, thrusting his body out in that direction, “yonder, where there is a chapel, I think I see—”

A third fierce whistle passed through the air, and almost instantaneously the boy was seen to descend, catching for a moment at the trunk and branches, and then falling headlong with arms outspread.

“Curse it!” exclaimed the officer, running up.

The boy landed on the ground, upon his back, and remained stretched out there, with arms outspread and supine; a stream of blood flowed from his breast, on the left. The sergeant and two soldiers leaped from their horses; the officer bent over and opened his shirt: the ball had entered his left lung. “He is dead!” exclaimed the officer.

“No, he still lives!” replied the sergeant.—“Ah, poor boy! brave boy!” cried the officer. “Courage, courage!” But while he was saying “courage,” he was pressing his handkerchief on the wound. The boy rolled his eyes wildly and dropped his head back. He was dead. The officer turned pale and stood for a moment gazing at him; then he laid him down carefully on his cloak upon the grass; then rose and stood looking at him; the sergeant and two soldiers also stood motionless, gazing upon him: the rest were facing in the direction of the enemy.

“Poor boy!” repeated the officer. “Poor, brave boy!”

Then he approached the house, removed the tricolor from the window, and spread it in guise of a funeral pall over the little dead boy, leaving his face uncovered. The sergeant collected the dead boy’s shoes, cap, his little stick, and his knife, and placed them beside him.

They stood for a few moments longer in silence; then the officer turned to the sergeant and said to him, “We will send the ambulance for him: he died as a soldier; the soldiers shall bury him.” Having said this, he wafted a kiss with his hand to the dead boy, and shouted “To horse!” All sprang into the saddle, the troop drew together and resumed its road.

And a few hours later the little dead boy received the honors of war.

At sunset the whole line of the Italian advance-posts marched forward towards the foe, and along the same road which had been traversed in the morning by the detachment of cavalry, there proceeded, in two files, a heavy battalion of sharpshooters, who, a few days before, had valiantly watered the hill of San Martino with blood. The news of the boy’s death had already spread among the soldiers before they left the encampment. The path, flanked by a rivulet, ran a few paces distant from the house. When the first officers of the battalion caught sight of the little body stretched at the foot of the ash-tree and covered with the tricolored banner, they made the salute to it with their swords, and one of them bent over the bank of the streamlet, which was covered with flowers at that spot, plucked a couple of blossoms and threw them on it. Then all the sharpshooters, as they passed, plucked flowers and threw them on the body. In a few minutes the boy was covered with flowers, and officers and soldiers all saluted him as they passed by: “Bravo, little Lombard!” “Farewell, my lad!” “I salute thee, gold locks!” “Hurrah!” “Glory!” “Farewell!” One officer tossed him his medal for valor; another went and kissed his brow. And flowers continued to rain down on his bare feet, on his blood-stained breast, on his golden head. And there he lay asleep on the grass, enveloped in his flag, with a white and almost smiling face, poor boy! as though he heard these salutes and was glad that he had given his life for his Lombardy.

THE POOR.

Tuesday, 29th.

To give one’s life for one’s country as the Lombard boy did, is a great virtue; but you must not neglect the lesser virtues, my son. This morning as you walked in front of me, when we were returning from school, you passed near a poor woman who was holding between her knees a thin, pale child, and who asked alms of you. You looked at her and gave her nothing, and yet you had some coppers in your pocket. Listen, my son. Do not accustom yourself to pass indifferently before misery which stretches out its hand to you and far less before a mother who asks a copper for her child. Reflect that the child may be hungry; think of the agony of that poor woman. Picture to yourself the sob of despair of your mother, if she were some day forced to say, “Enrico, I cannot give you any bread even to-day!” When I give a soldo to a beggar, and he says to me, “God preserve your health, and the health of all belonging to you!” you cannot understand the sweetness which these words produce in my heart, the gratitude that I feel for that poor man. It seems to me certain that such a good wish must keep one in good health for a long time, and I return home content, and think, “Oh, that poor man has returned to me very much more than I gave him!” Well, let me sometimes feel that good wish called forth, merited by you; draw a soldo from your little purse now and then, and let it fall into the hand of a blind man without means of subsistence, of a mother without bread, of a child without a mother. The poor love the alms of boys, because it does not humiliate them, and because boys, who stand in need of everything, resemble themselves: you see that there are always poor people around the schoolhouses. The alms of a man is an act of charity; but that of a child is at one and the same time an act of charity and a caress—do you understand? It is as though a soldo and a flower fell from your hand together. Reflect that you lack nothing, and that they lack everything, that while you aspire to be happy, they are content simply with not dying. Reflect, that it is a horror, in the midst of so many palaces, along the streets thronged with carriages, and children clad in velvet, that there should be women and children who have nothing to eat. To have nothing to eat! O God! Boys like you, as good as you, as intelligent as you, who, in the midst of a great city, have nothing to eat, like wild beasts lost in a desert! Oh, never again, Enrico, pass a mother who is begging, without placing a soldo in her hand!

Thy Father.