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."