Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/174

 lights, and then good-bye to the show! They are obliged to return the money, and to work the entire night at repairing their booth.

There are two lads who work; and my father recognized the smallest one as he was going across the square. He is the son of the proprietor, the same one whom we saw perform tricks on horse-back last year in a circus on the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. And he has grown; he must be eight years old. He is a handsome boy, with a round and roguish face, and with so many black curls that they escape from his pointed cap. He is dressed up like a clown, decked out in a sort of sack, with sleeves of white, embroidered with black, and his slippers are of cloth. He is a merry little imp. He charms every one. He does everything. We see him early in the morning, wrapped in a shawl, carrying milk to his wooden house; then he goes to get the horses at the stable on the Via Bertola. He holds the tiny baby in his arms; he carries hoops, trestles, rails, ropes; he cleans the vans, lights the fire, and in his leisure moments he always hangs about his mother. My father is always watching him from the window, and does nothing but talk about him and his family, who have the air of nice people, and of being fond of their children.

One evening we went to the circus. It was cold, and there was hardly any one there; but the little clown did his best to keep the crowd merry. He made risky leaps; he caught hold of the horses' tails; he walked, all alone, with his legs in the air; he sang, always with a smile on his handsome, little, brown