Tuesday, 25th.
The boy who sent the postage-stamp to the Calabrian is the one who
pleases me best of all. His name is Garrone: he is the biggest boy in
the class: he is about fourteen years old; his head is large, his
shoulders broad; he is good, as one can see when he smiles; but it seems
as though he always thought like a man. I already know many of my
comrades. Another one pleases me, too, by the name of Coretti, and he
wears chocolate-colored trousers and a catskin cap: he is always jolly;
he is the son of a huckster of wood, who was a soldier in the war of
1866, in the squadron of Prince Umberto, and they say that he has three
medals. There is little Nelli, a poor hunchback, a weak boy, with a thin
face. There is one who is very well dressed, who always wears fine
Florentine plush, and is named Votini. On the bench in front of me there
is a boy who is called "the little mason" because his father is a mason:
his face is as round as an apple, with a nose like a small ball; he
possesses a special talent: he knows how to make _a hare's face_, and
they all get him to make a hare's face, and then they laugh. He wears a
little ragged cap, which he carries rolled up in his pocket like a
handkerchief. Beside the little mason there sits Garoffi, a long, thin,
silly fellow, with a nose and beak of a screech owl, and very small
eyes, who is always trafficking in little pens and images and
match-boxes, and who writes the lesson on his nails, in order that he
may read it on the sly. Then there is a young gentleman, Carlo Nobis,
who seems very haughty; and he is between two boys who are sympathetic
to me,--the son of a blacksmith-ironmonger, clad in a jacket which
reaches to his knees, who is pale, as though from illness, who always
has a frightened air, and who never laughs; and one with red hair, who
has a useless arm, and wears it suspended from his neck; his father has
gone away to America, and his mother goes about peddling pot-herbs. And
there is another curious type,--my neighbor on the left,--Stardi--small
and thickset, with no neck,--a gruff fellow, who speaks to no one, and
seems not to understand much, but stands attending to the master without
winking, his brow corrugated with wrinkles, and his teeth clenched; and
if he is questioned when the master is speaking, he makes no reply the
first and second times, and the third time he gives a kick: and beside
him there is a bold, cunning face, belonging to a boy named Franti, who
has already been expelled from another district. There are, in addition,
two brothers who are dressed exactly alike, who resemble each other to a
hair, and both of whom wear caps of Calabrian cut, with a peasant's
plume. But handsomer than all the rest, the one who has the most talent,
who will surely be the head this year also, is Derossi; and the master,
who has already perceived this, always questions him. But I like
Precossi, the son of the blacksmith-ironmonger, the one with the long
jacket, who seems sickly. They say that his father beats him; he is very
timid, and every time that he addresses or touches any one, he says,
"Excuse me," and gazes at them with his kind, sad eyes. But Garrone is
the biggest and the nicest.