Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/112

 father had written from America that they might expect him any day.

Oh, the two delightful hours that we passed together! Derossi and Coretti are the two joiliest boys in the school; my father fell in love with them. Coretti had on his chocolate-colored jacket and his catskin cap. He is a lively imp, who always wants to be doing something, stirring up something, setting something to going. He had already carried on his shoulders half a cartload of wood, early that morning; nevertheless, he pranced all over the house, taking note of everything and talking incessantly, as sprightly and nimble as a squirrel. Going into the kitchen, he asked the cook how much we had to pay a myriagramme for wood, because his father sells it at forty-five centesimi. He is always talking of his father, of the time when he was a soldier in the 49th regiment, at the battle of Custoza, where he served in the squadron of Prince Umberto. And he is so gentle in his manners! It makes no difference that he was born and brought up surrounded by wood: he has nobility in his blood, in his heart, so my father says.

And Derossi amused us greatly. He knows geography like a teacher. He shut his eyes and said:—

“There, I see the whole of Italy; the Apennines, which extend to the Ionian Sea, the rivers flowing here and there, the white cities, the gulfs, the blue bays, the green islands;” and he repeated the names correctly in their order and very rapidly, as though he were reading them on the map. And at the sight of him standing thus, with his head held high, with all his golden curls, with his closed eyes, and all dressed in bright