The boy fell into his father's arms, choking with emotion.

The sister, the nurse, and the a.s.sistant ran up, and stood there in amazement.

The boy could not recover his voice.

"Oh, my Cicillo!" exclaimed the father, after bestowing an attentive look on the sick man, as he kissed the boy repeatedly. "Cicillo, my son, how is this? They took you to the bedside of another man. And there was I, in despair at not seeing you after mamma had written, 'I have sent him.' Poor Cicillo! How many days have you been here? How did this mistake occur? I have come out of it easily! I have a good const.i.tution, you know! And how is mamma? And Concettella? And the little baby--how are they all? I am leaving the hospital now. Come, then. Oh, Lord G.o.d!

Who would have thought it!"

The boy tried to interpolate a few words, to tell the news of the family. "Oh how happy I am!" he stammered. "How happy I am! What terrible days I have pa.s.sed!" And he could not finish kissing his father.

But he did not stir.

"Come," said his father; "we can get home this evening." And he drew the lad towards him. The boy turned to look at his patient.

"Well, are you coming or not?" his father demanded, in amazement.

The boy cast yet another glance at the sick man, who opened his eyes at that moment and gazed intently at him.

Then a flood of words poured from his very soul. "No, daddy; wait--here--I can't. Here is this old man. I have been here for five days. He gazes at me incessantly. I thought he was you. I love him dearly. He looks at me; I give him his drink; he wants me always beside him; he is very ill now. Have patience; I have not the courage--I don't know--it pains me too much; I will return home to-morrow; let me stay here a little longer; I don't at all like to leave him. See how he looks at me! I don't know who he is, but he wants me; he will die alone: let me stay here, dear daddy!"

"Bravo, little fellow!" exclaimed the attendant.

The father stood in perplexity, staring at the boy; then he looked at the sick man. "Who is he?" he inquired.

"A countryman, like yourself," replied the attendant, "just arrived from abroad, and who entered the hospital on the very day that you entered it. He was out of his senses when they brought him here, and could not speak. Perhaps he has a family far away, and sons. He probably thinks that your son is one of his."

The sick man was still looking at the boy.

The father said to Cicillo, "Stay."

"He will not have to stay much longer," murmured the attendant.

"Stay," repeated his father: "you have heart. I will go home immediately, to relieve mamma's distress. Here is a scudo for your expenses. Good by, my brave little son, until we meet!"

He embraced him, looked at him intently, kissed him again on the brow, and went away.

The boy returned to his post at the bedside, and the sick man appeared consoled. And Cicillo began again to play the nurse, no longer weeping, but with the same eagerness, the same patience, as before; he again began to give the man his drink, to arrange his bedclothes, to caress his hand, to speak softly to him, to exhort him to courage. He attended him all that day, all that night; he remained beside him all the following day. But the sick man continued to grow constantly worse; his face turned a purple color, his breathing grew heavier, his agitation increased, inarticulate cries escaped his lips, the inflammation became excessive. On his evening visit, the doctor said that he would not live through the night. And then Cicillo redoubled his cares, and never took his eyes from him for a minute. The sick man gazed and gazed at him, and kept moving his lips from time to time, with great effort, as though he wanted to say something, and an expression of extraordinary tenderness pa.s.sed over his eyes now and then, as they continued to grow smaller and more dim. And that night the boy watched with him until he saw the first rays of dawn gleam white through the windows, and the sister appeared.

The sister approached the bed, cast a glance at the patient, and then went away with rapid steps. A few moments later she reappeared with the a.s.sistant doctor, and with a nurse, who carried a lantern.

"He is at his last gasp," said the doctor.

The boy clasped the sick man's hand. The latter opened his eyes, gazed at him, and closed them once more.

At that moment the lad fancied that he felt his hand pressed. "He pressed my hand!" he exclaimed.

The doctor bent over the patient for an instant, then straightened himself up.

The sister detached a crucifix from the wall.

"He is dead!" cried the boy.

"Go, my son," said the doctor: "your work of mercy is finished. Go, and may fortune attend you! for you deserve it. G.o.d will protect you.

Farewell!"

The sister, who had stepped aside for a moment, returned with a little bunch of violets which she had taken from a gla.s.s on the window-sill, and handed them to the boy, saying:--

"I have nothing else to give you. Take these in memory of the hospital."

"Thanks," returned the boy, taking the bunch of flowers with one hand and drying his eyes with the other; "but I have such a long distance to go on foot--I shall spoil them." And separating the violets, he scattered them over the bed, saying: "I leave them as a memento for my poor dead man. Thanks, sister! thanks, doctor!" Then, turning to the dead man, "Farewell--" And while he sought a name to give him, the sweet name which he had applied to him for five days recurred to his lips,--"Farewell, poor daddy!"

So saying, he took his little bundle of clothes under his arm, and, exhausted with fatigue, he walked slowly away. The day was dawning.

THE WORKSHOP.

Sat.u.r.day, 18th.

Precossi came last night to remind me that I was to go and see his workshop, which is down the street, and this morning when I went out with my father, I got him to take me there for a moment. As we approached the shop, Garoffi issued from it on a run, with a package in his hand, and making his big cloak, with which he covers up his merchandise, flutter. Ah! now I know where he goes to pilfer iron filings, which he sells for old papers, that barterer of a Garoffi! When we arrived in front of the door, we saw Precossi seated on a little pile of bricks, engaged in studying his lesson, with his book resting on his knees. He rose quickly and invited us to enter. It was a large apartment, full of coal-dust, bristling with hammers, pincers, bars, and old iron of every description; and in one corner burned a fire in a small furnace, where puffed a pair of bellows worked by a boy. Precossi, the father, was standing near the anvil, and a young man was holding a bar of iron in the fire.

"Ah! here he is," said the smith, as soon as he caught sight of us, and he lifted his cap, "the nice boy who gives away railway trains! He has come to see me work a little, has he not? I shall be at your service in a moment." And as he said it, he smiled; and he no longer had the ferocious face, the malevolent eyes of former days. The young man handed him a long bar of iron heated red-hot on one end, and the smith placed it on the anvil. He was making one of those curved bars for the rail of terrace bal.u.s.trades. He raised a large hammer and began to beat it, pushing the heated part now here, now there, between one point of the anvil and the middle, and turning it about in various ways; and it was a marvel to see how the iron curved beneath the rapid and accurate blows of the hammer, and twisted, and gradually a.s.sumed the graceful form of a leaf torn from a flower, like a pipe of dough which he had modelled with his hands. And meanwhile his son watched us with a certain air of pride, as much as to say, "See how my father works!"

"Do you see how it is done, little master?" the blacksmith asked me, when he had finished, holding out the bar, which looked like a bishop's crosier. Then he laid it aside, and thrust another into the fire.

"That was very well made, indeed," my father said to him. And he added, "So you are working--eh! You have returned to good habits?"

"Yes, I have returned," replied the workman, wiping away the perspiration, and reddening a little. "And do you know who has made me return to them?" My father pretended not to understand. "This brave boy," said the blacksmith, indicating his son with his finger; "that brave boy there, who studied and did honor to his father, while his father rioted, and treated him like a dog. When I saw that medal--Ah!

thou little lad of mine, no bigger than a soldo[1] of cheese, come hither, that I may take a good look at thy phiz!"

[1] The twentieth part of a cubit; Florentine measure.

The boy ran to him instantly; the smith took him and set him directly on the anvil, holding him under the arms, and said to him:--

"Polish off the frontispiece of this big beast of a daddy of yours a little!"

And then Precossi covered his father's black face with kisses, until he was all black himself.

"That's as it should be," said the smith, and he set him on the ground again.

"That really is as it should be, Precossi!" exclaimed my father, delighted. And bidding the smith and his son good day, he led me away.

As I was going out, little Precossi said to me, "Excuse me," and thrust a little packet of nails into my pocket. I invited him to come and view the Carnival from my house.

"You gave him your railway train," my father said to me in the street; "but if it had been made of gold and filled with pearls, it would still have been but a petty gift to that sainted son, who has reformed his father's heart."

THE LITTLE HARLEQUIN.

Monday, 20th.