Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/92

 of their subscribers, and he earned three lire for every five hundred of these paper wrappers, written in large and regular characters. But this work wearied him, and he often complained of it to his family at dinner.

“My eyes are giving out,” he said;“ this night work is killing me.” One day his son said to him, “Let me work instead of you, papa; you know that I can write like you, and fairly well.” But the father answered:

“No, my son, you must study; your school is a much more important thing than my wrappers; I would hate to rob you of a single hour; I thank you, but I will not have it; do not mention it to me again.”

The son knew that it was useless to insist on such a matter with his father, and he did not persist; but this is what he did. He knew that exactly at midnight his father stopped writing, and quitted his workroom to go to his bedroom; he had heard him several times: so soon as the twelve strokes of the clock had sounded, he had heard the sound of a chair drawn back, and the slow step of his father. One night he waited until the latter was in bed, then dressed himself very, very softly, and felt his way to the little workroom, lighted the petroleum lamp again, seated himself at the writing-table, where lay a pile of white wrappers and the list of addresses, and began to write, imitating exactly his father's handwriting. And he wrote with a will, gladly, a little in fear, and the wrappers piled up. From time to time he dropped the pen to rub his hands, and then began again with increased alacrity, listening and smiling. He wrote a