Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/259

Rh to my forehead, from my forehead to my shoulder.

In the meantime, my father was noticing the bare walls, the wretched bed, the morsel of bread and the little phial of oil which lay on the window-sill; and he seemed desirous of saying, “Poor master! after sixty years of teaching, is this all your reward?”

But the good old man was content, and began once more to talk gayly of our family, of the other teachers of that day, and of my father's schoolmates; some of them he remembered, and some of them he did not. And each told the other news of this one or of that one. When my father interrupted the conversation, to beg the old man to come down into town and lunch with us, he replied effusively, “I thank you, I thank you,” but he seemed undecided. My father took him by both hands, and insisted.

“But how should I manage to eat,” said the master, “with these poor hands which shake in this way? It is a penance for others also.”

“We will help you, master,” said my father. And then he accepted, as he shook his head and smiled.

“This is a beautiful day,” he said, as he closed the outer door, “a beautiful day, dear Signor Bottini! I assure you that I shall remember it as long as I live.”

My father gave one arm to the master, and the latter took me by the hand, and we walked down the lane. We met two little barefooted girls leading some cows, and a boy who passed us on a run, with a huge load of straw on his shoulders. The master told us that they were scholars of the second grade; that in the morning they led the cattle to pasture, and worked in