Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/54

 and work which had been begun. “Here it is,” he said; “I left the second answer unfinished: Leather is used for shoes and belts, and—oh yes!—and valises.” And, taking his pen, he began to write in his fine hand.

“Is there any one here?” came a call from the shop at that moment. It was a woman who had come to buy some little fagots.

“Here I am!” replied Coretti; and he sprang out, weighed the fagots, took the money, ran to a corner to enter the sale in a shabby old account-book, and returned to his work, saying, “Let's see if I can finish that sentence.” And he wrote, travelling-bags, and knapsacks for soldiers. “Oh, my poor coffee is boiling over!” he exclaimed, and ran to the stove to take the coffee-pot from the fire. “It is coffee for mamma,” he said; “I had to learn how to make it. Wait a while, and we will carry it to her; she will be glad to see you.—She has been in bed a whole week. Conjugation of the verb! I always scald my fingers with this coffee-pot. What is there that I can add after the soldiers' knapsacks? Something more is needed, and I can think of nothing. Come to mamma.”

He opened a door, and we entered another small room: there Coretti's mother lay in a big bed, with a white kerchief wound round her head.

“Here is your coffee, mamma,” said he; “and this is one of my schoolmates.”

“Ah, brave little master!” said the woman to me; “you have come to visit the sick, have you?”

Meanwhile, Coretti was arranging the pillows behind his mother's back, straightening the bed-clothes,