Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/111

 “It was your father, and you cannot deny it this time; it was your father who did that to you. Tell the principal about it, and he will have him arrested for it.”

But he sprang up, all flushed, with a voice trembling with indignation:—

“It's not true! it's not true! My father never beats me!”

But afterwards, during lesson time, his tears fell upon the bench, and when any one looked at him, he tried to smile, in order that he might not show it. Poor Precossi! To-morrow Derossi, Coretti, and Nelli are coming to my house. I want to tell him to come also; I want to have him take luncheon with me; I want to treat him to books, and turn the house upside down to amuse him, and to fill his pockets with fruit, for the sake of seeing him happy for once, Poor Precossi! who is so good and so brave!

Thursday, 12th.

This has been one of the finest Thursdays of the year for me. At two o'clock, precisely, Derossi and Coretti came to the house, with Nelli, the hunchback. Precossi's father did not let him come. Derossi and Coretti were still laughing at their encounter with Crossi, the son of the vegetable-seller, in the street,—the boy with the useless arm and the red hair,—who was carrying a large cabbage for sale. With the soldo which he was to receive for the cabbage he was to go and buy a pen. He was perfectly happy because his