Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/145

 America, after an absence of seven years. My mother kissed Precossi. My father introduced Garrone to her, saying:—

“Here is a lad who is not only a good boy; he is a man of honor and a gentleman.”

And the boy dropped his big, shaggy head, with a sly smile at me. Precossi had on his medal, and he was happy, because his father had gone to work again, and has not drunk anything for the last five days, wants him to be always in the work-shop to keep him company, and seems quite another man.

We began to play, and I brought out all my things. Precossi was delighted with my train of cars, and the engine that goes of itself on being wound up. He had never seen anything of the kind. He devoured the little red and yellow cars with his eyes. I gave him the key, and he knelt down to play with the train, and did not so much as raise his head again. I have never seen him so happy. He kept saying, “Excuse me, excuse me,” and motioning to us with his hands, not to stop the engine; and then he picked it up and started the cars with as much care as though they had been made of glass. He was afraid of tarnishing them with his breath, and he polished them up again, looking them over, top and bottom, and smiling to himself.

We stood around him and gazed at him. We looked at the slender neck, the poor little ears, which I had seen bleeding one day, the jacket with the sleeves turned up, the two sickly, little arms, which had been upraised to ward off blows from his face. Oh! at