Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/264

232 me laugh once more for the first time, with his hare's face; and how well he does it, now that his face is somewhat lengthened through illness, poor fellow! And Coretti came. And Garoffi came to present me with two tickets in his new lottery of “a penknife with five surprises” which he purchased of a second-hand dealer in the Via Bertola. Then, yesterday, while I was asleep, Precossi came and laid his cheek on my hand without waking me; and as he came from his father's workshop, with his face covered with coal dust, he left a black print on my sleeve, the sight of which caused me great pleasure when I awoke.

How green the trees have become in these few days! And how I envy the boys whom I see running to school with their books when my father carries me to the window! But I shall go back there soon myself. I am so impatient to see all the boys once more, and my seat, the garden, the streets; to know all that has taken place during the interval; to apply myself to my books again, and to my copy-books, which I seem not to have seen for a year!

How pale and thin my poor mother has grown! Poor father! how weary he looks! And my kind companions who came to see me and walked on tiptoe and kissed my brow! It makes me sad, even now, to think that one day we must part. Perhaps I shall continue my studies with Derossi and with some others; but how about all the rest? When the fourth grade is once finished, then good-bye! we shall never see each other again: I shall never see them again at my bedside when I am ill,—Garrone, Precossi, Coretti, who