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.