Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/244

212 There were even some who did not eat, because they were watching the flies flying, and others coughed and sprinkled a shower of rice all around them. It looked like a poultry-yard. But it was fine. The two rows of babies formed a pretty sight, with their hair all tied on the tops of their heads with red, green, and blue ribbons.

One teacher asked a row of eight children, “Where does rice grow?” The whole eight opened their mouths wide, filled as they were with the pottage, and replied in concert, in a sing-song, “It grows in the water.” Then the teacher gave the order, “Hands up!” and it was delightful to see all those little arms fly up, which a few months ago were in swaddling-clothes, and all those little hands waving, which looked like so many white and pink butterflies.

Then they all went to play; but first they took their little baskets, which were hanging on the wall with their lunches in them. They went out into the garden and scattered around and got out their provisions, bread, stewed plums, a tiny bit of cheese, a hard-boiled egg, little apples, a handful of boiled vetches, or a wing of chicken. In an instant the whole garden was strewn with crumbs, as though they had been scattered from their feed by a flock of birds. They ate in all the queerest ways, like rabbits, like rats, like cats, nibbling, licking, sucking. There was one child who held a bit of rye bread hugged closely to his breast, and who was rubbing it with a medlar, as though he were polishing a sword. Some of the little ones crushed in their fists small cheeses, which trickled between their fingers like milk, and ran down