Part 12 (1/2)

”Your train pleases Precossi. He has no playthings. Does your heart suggest nothing to you?”

Instantly I seized the engine and the cars in both hands, and placed the whole in his arms, saying:--

”Take this; it is yours.”

He looked at me, and did not understand. ”It is yours,” I said; ”I give it to you.”

Then he looked at my father and mother, in still greater astonishment, and asked me:--

”But why?”

My father said to him:--

”Enrico gives it to you because he is your friend, because he loves you--to celebrate your medal.”

Precossi asked timidly:--

”I may carry it away--home?”

”Of course!” we all responded. He was already at the door, but he dared not go out. He was happy! He begged our pardon with a mouth that smiled and quivered. Garrone helped him to wrap up the train in a handkerchief, and as he bent over, he made the things with which his pockets were filled rattle.

”Some day,” said Precossi to me, ”you shall come to the shop to see my father at work. I will give you some nails.”

My mother put a little bunch of flowers into Garrone's b.u.t.tonhole, for him to carry to his mother in her name. Garrone said, ”Thanks,” in his big voice, without raising his chin from his breast. But all his kind and n.o.ble soul shone in his eyes.

PRIDE.

Sat.u.r.day, 11th.

The idea of Carlo n.o.bis rubbing off his sleeve affectedly, when Precossi touches him in pa.s.sing! That fellow is pride incarnate because his father is a rich man. But Derossi's father is rich too. He would like to have a bench to himself; he is afraid that the rest will soil it; he looks down on everybody and always has a scornful smile on his lips: woe to him who stumbles over his foot, when we go out in files two by two!

For a mere trifle he flings an insulting word in your face, or a threat to get his father to come to the school. It is true that his father did give him a good lesson when he called the little son of the charcoal-man a ragam.u.f.fin. I have never seen so disagreeable a schoolboy! No one speaks to him, no one says good by to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would give him a suggestion when he does not know his lesson. And he cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by all. But Derossi pays no attention to him when he is by; and when the boys tell Garrone that n.o.bis has been speaking ill of him, he says:--

”His pride is so senseless that it does not deserve even my pa.s.sing notice.”

But Coretti said to him one day, when he was smiling disdainfully at his catskin cap:--

”Go to Derossi for a while, and learn how to play the gentleman!”

Yesterday he complained to the master, because the Calabrian touched his leg with his foot. The master asked the Calabrian:--

”Did you do it intentionally?”--”No, sir,” he replied, frankly.--”You are too petulant, n.o.bis.”

And n.o.bis retorted, in his airy way, ”I shall tell my father about it.”

Then the teacher got angry.

”Your father will tell you that you are in the wrong, as he has on other occasions. And besides that, it is the teacher alone who has the right to judge and punish in school.” Then he added pleasantly:--

”Come, n.o.bis, change your ways; be kind and courteous to your comrades.