"As God exists I robbed him of the colt! The color makes no
difference. See what solid legs, _compare_! That beast is worth forty
_lire_ with one's eyes shut."
"If it had not been for me," returned the friend, "you would not have
struck the bargain. Here are still two _lire_ and a half of your
money. And if you don't object we will go and have a drink to the
health of the ass!"
Now the colt needed to have its health in order to repay the
thirty-two and a half _lire_ which had been paid for it, and the straw
which it ate. Meanwhile it was contented to frisk behind _compare_
Neli, trying to bite his new _padrone's_ coat tails, and making no ado
because it was leaving forever the stall where it had been sheltered
by its mother's side, free to rub its nose on the edge of the manger,
or to gambol and cut up capers, butting with the ram or going to rub
the pig's back in its pen.
And the _padrone_, who was still again counting over the money in her
handkerchief before the apothecary's counter, had on her side no
regrets, although she had assisted at the birth of the foal with its
black and white skin, as shiny as silk, and which could not at first
stand up on its legs, but lay in the warm sun in the court-yard while
all the grass which had made it grow so big and strong had passed
through her hands!
The only person who missed the foal was its mother, who stretched out
her neck toward the entrance of the stall and brayed. But when her
udder was no longer painfully distended with the milk, she also forgot
about the foal.
"Now you will see," said _compare_ Neli, "that this ass will carry
four bushels of corn better than a mule, for me."
And at harvest time he was set to threshing.
At the threshing, the colt, fastened by the neck, in a row with other
animals--worn out mules, decrepit horses, paced over the sheaves,
from morning till night, so that when it was brought back to the
stable, he was so tired that he had no desire to bite at the heap of
straw where they put him up in the shade when the wind blew, while the
peasants did their winnowing with shouts of "_Viva Maria!_"
Then he let his nose hang down and drooped his pendent ears, like a
full-fledged ass with eyes dulled, as if he were weary of gazing
across over that vast plain, smoking here and there with the dust of
the threshing-floors, and he seemed made for nothing else than to die
of thirst and enforced treading on sheaves.
At eventide, it was sent to the village with the saddle-bags filled
full, and the _padrone's_ boy followed, to prick it in the withers,
along the hedges lining the road, that seemed alive with the
chattering of the tomtits, and the odor of the catnip and rosemary;
and the ass would gladly have snatched a mouthful, if they had not
always kept it on the go, until at last, the blood ran to its legs and
they had to take it to the farrier; but this did not trouble the
_padrone_, because the harvest was good, and the young ass had earned
its cost,--his thirty-two _lire_ and a half. The _padrone_ said,--
"Now, the work has worn him out, but if I could sell him for twenty
_lire_, I should still have made a good thing out of him."
The only person who had a fondness for the young ass was the boy who
made it trot over the road on the way from the threshing-floor. And he
felt badly when the farrier burnt its legs with red-hot irons, so that
the young ass squirmed and flung its tail into the air, and pricked up
its ears, and when it ran across the field of the fair, and it tried
to break loose from the twisted rope which they fastened to its lip,
and it rolled its eyes with the agony, as if it were undergoing
torture, when the farrier's apprentice came to change the hot irons,
red as fire, and the skin smoked and sizzled, like fish in a
frying-pan. But _compare_ Neli cried to his boy,--
"You beast! what are you weeping for? Now that he is played out, and
since the harvest has been a good one, we'll sell him and buy a mule,
and that will be better."
Boys do not understand some things, and after the young ass was sold
to _massaro_ Cirino, of Licodiana, _compare_ Neli's son used to visit
it in the stall, and to caress its face and neck, and the ass would
turn round its head, and snuff as if it had become attached to him,
while, as a general thing, asses are made to be tied wherever their
_padrone_ may see fit to tie them, and change their lot as they change
their stall.
_Massaro_ Cirino, of Licodiana, had paid a very small price for the
Saint Joseph's ass, because it still bore the scars on its pastern,
and _compare_ Neli's wife, when she saw the poor beast go by with its
new master, said,--
"That beast was our mascot. That black and white skin brought joy to
the threshing-floor, and now the profits are going from bad to worse,
for we have had to sell the mule, too."
* * * * *
_Massaro_ Cirino had yoked the ass to the plow, together with an old
mare which matched it like a stone in a ring, and drew her brave
furrow all day long, for miles and miles, from the time the lark began
to sing in the clear morning sky, till, with quick and hasty flights,
and melancholy chirping, the robin red-breasts ran to hide behind the
naked bushes, trembling with cold under the mist that rose like a sea.
Only, as the ass was smaller than the mare, a cushion of hay was put
over the saddle under the yoke, and it had hard work to break up the
frozen clods, by dint of chafed shoulders.
"It'll help spare the mare, who's getting old," said _massaro_ Cirino.
"It's got a heart as broad and big as the Plain of Catania, that Saint
Joseph's ass has! and you would not think it!"
And he added, turning to his wife, who had followed him, wrapped in a
mantellina, penuriously scattering the seed,--
"If anything should happen to it--Heaven forefend--we are ruined with
the prospects before us."
The woman looked forward to the prospects of crops in the rocky,
desolate, little field, with its white and cracked soil, so long had
it been since the rain fell, and all the water it got came in the form
of mist and fog, of the kind that spoils the seed, and when it was
time to dig up the ground, it was so yellow and hard, that you would
call it the very beard of the devil, as if it had been burnt with
sulphur matches!
"In spite of the crop which I put in," mourned _massaro_ Cirino,
pulling off his doublet, "why, that ass has worked himself to death
like a stupid mule. That ass is under a curse!"
His wife had a lump in her throat at the sight of the parched field,
and she replied with tears rolling from her eyes,--
"The ass had nothing to do with the failure. It brought a good crop
to _compare_ Neli. But we are unfortunate."
So the Saint Joseph's ass changed masters once more, when _massaro_
Cirino returned from the field with the sickle over his shoulder, it
being useless even to try to reap that year, although the images of
the saints had been stuck into bamboo sticks all over the ground for
protection, and two _tari_[17] had been paid to the priest for his
blessing.
[17] A _tari_ is one-thirtieth of an _onza_.
"It's the devil that we want rather than the saints," said _massaro_
Cirino, irreverently, when he saw all those stalks standing up like
crests, which even the ass refused to touch, and he spat up towards
that turquoise-colored sky, so relentlessly cloudless.
It was then that _compare_ Luciano, the carter, meeting _massaro_
Cirino, as he was driving back the ass with empty saddlebags, asked,--
"What'll you take for that Saint Joseph's ass?"
"Anything you'll give me! Cursed be he and the saint who made him!"
replied _massaro_ Cirino. "Now we haven't any more bread to eat, or
fodder to give the beast."
"I'll give you fifteen _lire_ for it, seeing that you are ruined, but
the ass isn't worth so much, for it won't last out more than six
months! See how thin it is!"
"You might have got more than that," grumbled _massaro_ Cirino's wife,
after the bargain was settled. "_Compare_ Luciano's mule's dead, and
he hadn't money enough to buy another. Now if he hadn't bought our
Saint Joseph's ass, he wouldn't have known what to do with his cart
and harnesses; you'll see that ass'll be a fortune to him."
The ass was set to work drawing the cart, but the shafts of it were
much too high for it, and brought all the weight on its shoulders, so
that it would not have survived even six months; for it went limping
along over the hilly roads under _compare_ Luciano's cruel
cudgelling, who tried to put a little spirit into it; and when it went
down hill, the case was even worse, for then the whole load rested on
it, and pushed against it so hard that it had to make its back like an
arch to hold the cart back, and push with those poor scarred legs, and
people would laugh to see it, and when it fell it would have taken all
the angels of Paradise to get it to its feet again. But _compare_
Luciano knew that he carried three quintals of merchandise more than a
mule, and the load would bring him five _tari_ a quintal.
"Every day that Saint Joseph's ass lives," said he, "I make fifteen
_tari_, and his keep costs me less than a mule's would."
Every time the people who happened to be sauntering along behind the
cart saw the poor beast, which could hardly put one leg in front of
the other, arching its spine and panting heavily, with discouragement
clouding its eye, they would say,--
"Block the wheel with a rock, and let that poor creature have a chance
to get its breath."