In this way Jeli saw the girl morning and evening, and they would sit together on the wall of the sheep-fold and talk, while the boy looked after the sheep.

"It seems as if I were at Tebidi again," said Mara, "when we were little things, and used to stand on the foot bridge."

Jeli also remembered everything, though he said little, being always a judicious youth, and of few words.

When the harvest was over, and the eve of parting had come, Mara went out to talk with the young man, just as he was making "ricotto cheese," and he was wholly intent in skimming the whey with his ladle.

"Now I'll say _addio_," said she, "for to-morrow we return to Vizzini."

"How have the beans gone?"

"Bad! _la lupa_[11] has eaten them all this year."

[11] A parasitic disease.

"It depends on the rain which has been scarce," said Jeli. "We have had to kill even the lambs because there hasn't been enough feed for them. Over all of la Salonia there hasn't been three inches of gra.s.s."

"But that doesn't affect you. You always have your wages, good year or bad."

"Yes, that's so," said he. "But it disgusts me to give those poor creatures to the butcher."

"Do you remember when you came for the _festa_ of Saint John, and were left without a _padrone_?"

"Yes, I remember."

"It was my father who got you a place here with _ma.s.saro_ Neri."

"And why didn't you marry _ma.s.saro_ Neri's son?"

"Because it wasn't the will of G.o.d. My father has been unlucky," she continued, after a brief pause. "Since we came to Marineo, everything has gone ill with us. The beans, the corn, that piece of vineyard that we have yonder. Then my brother went off to the army, and we lost a mule that was worth forty _onze_."

"I know," said Jeli, "the bay mule."

"Now, that we have lost all our property, who would want to marry me?"

Mara was breaking up a twig of briar while she said this, with her chin in her bosom, and, with her elbow, she gently nudged Jeli's elbow without appearing to mean it. But Jeli, with his eyes on the churn, also made no response, and she went on,--

"At Tebidi they used to say that you and I would be husband and wife, do you remember?"

"Yes," said Jeli, and he laid his ladle on the top of the churn. "But I am a poor shepherd, and I can not pretend to a _ma.s.saro's_ daughter like you."

La Mara remained silent for a little while, and then she said, "If you want me, I will willingly be yours."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"And what will _ma.s.saro_ Agrippino say to it?"

"My father says that now that you know your trade, and since you are not one of those who waste their wages, but make one _soldo_ into two, and do not eat to consume bread, in time you will come to have flocks of your own, and will be rich."

"If that is so," said Jeli, in conclusion, "I will gladly take you."

"There," said Mara, as soon as it had grown dark and the sheep were relapsing into silence, "if you want a kiss, I will give you one, because we are going to be husband and wife."

Jeli took one in "holy peace," and not knowing what to say, added, "I have always loved you, even when you were going to desert me for the son of _ma.s.saro_ Neri."

But he had not the heart to speak of the other one.

"Don't you see? We were meant for one another," said Mara, in conclusion.

_Ma.s.saro_ Agrippino, in fact, said "Yes," and _gna_ Lia put on a new gown, and she had a pair of velvet trousers made for their son-in-law.

Mara was as lovely and fresh as a rose, with her white mantellina, reminding you of the Paschal lamb, and that amber necklace which made her neck look so white; so, when Jeli walked through the street at her side, he marched stiffly and erect, dressed in his new cloth and velvet suit, and he did not dare even blow his nose with his red silk handkerchief, lest he should make a fool of himself; and the neighbors and all who knew the story of Don Alfonso laughed in his face.

When Mara said "_sissignore_," and the priest made her Jeli's wife with a grand sign of the cross, Jeli took her home, and it seemed to him as if they had given him all the gold of the Madonna, and all the lands that he had seen with his eyes.

"Now that we are husband and wife," said he, when they reached their house, as he was sitting in front of her, and trying to appear very humble, "now that we are husband and wife, I may tell you that it does not seem to me true as you pretended--you might have had ever so many better husbands than I--so beautiful and gracious you are."

The poor fellow could not find anything else to say, and he could not contain his delight to see Mara setting and arranging everything through the house, and playing _la padrona_. He found it impossible to tear himself away to return to la Salonia; when he started Monday, he was very slow in arranging in the pack of the a.s.s, his saddle-bags, and his cloak, and his umbrella.

"You ought to come to la Salonia, yourself," he said to his wife, who was watching him from the door-step. "You ought to come with me."

But the young woman began to laugh, and replied that she was not born to look after sheep, and had no reason to go to la Salonia.

Truly, Mara was not born for tending sheep, and she was not accustomed to the January tramontana wind, which stiffens the hand on the staff, and it seems as if your fingers would drop off, or to furious storms that come, when the water penetrates to your very bones, and again, when the dust drives choking through the streets, when the sheep travel under the boiling sun, or to the hard bed on the ground, and the mouldy bread, and the long, silent, solitary days, when through the arid fields nothing else is seen in the distance but occasionally some sun-burned peasant driving his a.s.s silently along over the white, interminable road.

Jeli knew at least that Mara was warm and comfortable under the quilts, or was spinning in front of the fire, talking with the women of the neighborhood, or was enjoying the sun on the balcony, while he was returning from the pasture tired and thirsty, or wet through with the rain, or when the wind drifted the snow back of his hut and put out his fire of branches.

Every month Mara went to receive the wages from the _padrone_, and they lacked neither eggs nor fowls, nor oil in the lamp, nor wine in the jug. Twice a month Jeli came home to see her, and she would stand on the balcony looking for him with her spindle in her hand, and after he had left the a.s.s in the stable and removed his pack and filled the rack with oats, and placed the wood under the shed in the yard, or whatever he brought into the kitchen, Mara would help him hang his cloak on the nail and take off his leather leggings before the hearth, and pour him out a gla.s.s of wine, and set to work to boil the soup and get the table ready, quiet and thoughtful, like a good housewife, while talking of this thing and that,--of the brooding hen that was setting, of the cloth that was on the loom, of the calf which they were raising, never forgetting anything of what she had been doing.

Jeli, when he found himself at home, felt that he was more important than the pope.

But on the eve of Santa Barbara he came home unexpectedly late, when all the lights were out in the street and the town clock was striking midnight. He came in because the mare which the _padrone_ had left out at pasture had been suddenly taken sick, and he saw that it was a case that required the services of the farrier quickly, and he had wanted to bring him to town in spite of the rain that was falling like a torrent, and the muddy roads into which he sunk half up to his knees.

Knock and call as loud as he might behind the door, he had to wait half an hour under the eaves, while the water ran out at his heels. At last his wife came to open for him, and began to scold worse than if it had been herself who had been obliged to wander across country in such a tempest.

"Oh, what's the matter?" she demanded. "How you frightened me coming at this time o' night! Does it seem to you a proper Christian time to come? To-morrow I shall be ill!"

"Go back to bed, I will start up a fire."

"No, I'll have to go and get some wood."

"I'll go."

"No, I say."

When Mara returned with the wood in her arms Jeli said to her, "Why did you leave the door to the yard open? Was there not enough wood in the kitchen?"

"No, I went to get it under the shed."