Friday, 28th.
Yesterday afternoon I went with my mother and my sister Sylvia, to carry
the linen to the poor woman recommended by the newspaper: I carried the
bundle; Sylvia had the paper with the initials of the name and the
address. We climbed to the very roof of a tall house, to a long corridor
with many doors. My mother knocked at the last; it was opened by a woman
who was still young, blond and thin, and it instantly struck me that I
had seen her many times before, with that very same blue kerchief that
she wore on her head.
"Are you the person of whom the newspaper says so and so?" asked my
mother.
"Yes, signora, I am."
"Well, we have brought you a little linen." Then the woman began to
thank us and bless us, and could not make enough of it. Meanwhile I
espied in one corner of the bare, dark room, a boy kneeling in front of
a chair, with his back turned towards us, who appeared to be writing;
and he really was writing, with his paper on the chair and his inkstand
on the floor. How did he manage to write thus in the dark? While I was
saying this to myself, I suddenly recognized the red hair and the coarse
jacket of Crossi, the son of the vegetable-pedler, the boy with the
useless arm. I told my mother softly, while the woman was putting away
the things.
"Hush!" replied my mother; "perhaps he will feel ashamed to see you
giving alms to his mother: don't speak to him."
But at that moment Crossi turned round; I was embarrassed; he smiled,
and then my mother gave me a push, so that I should run to him and
embrace him. I did embrace him: he rose and took me by the hand.
"Here I am," his mother was saying in the meantime to my mother, "alone
with this boy, my husband in America these seven years, and I sick in
addition, so that I can no longer make my rounds with my vegetables, and
earn a few cents. We have not even a table left for my poor Luigino to
do his work on. When there was a bench down at the door, he could, at
least, write on the bench; but that has been taken away. He has not even
a little light so that he can study without ruining his eyes. And it is
a mercy that I can send him to school, since the city provides him with
books and copy-books. Poor Luigino, who would be so glad to study!
Unhappy woman, that I am!"
My mother gave her all that she had in her purse, kissed the boy, and
almost wept as we went out. And she had good cause to say to me: "Look
at that poor boy; see how he is forced to work, when you have every
comfort, and yet study seems hard to you! Ah! Enrico, there is more
merit in the work which he does in one day, than in your work for a
year. It is to such that the first prizes should be given!"