And I've got to give it all back because she had no children. At least, so the sacristan says, when he came with the Holy Water. And how kind she was to the little girl who reminded her of her poor sister. Any other woman, except an aunt, would have cast an evil eye on her, the poor little orphan!

"If you asked _curatolo_ Nino for his third daughter, it would make things all right, both for the orphan and for the dowry," suggested la Licodiana.

"That's what I say. But don't speak of it to me, for now my mouth is bitter as gall."

"I wouldn't talk about it now," said _comare_ Sidora. "Eat a bit of something, _compare_ Meno. You are all tired out."

"No! no!" returned _compare_ Meno several times. "Don't speak to me of eating, for I have a lump in my throat."

_Comare_ Sidora placed before him on a stool fresh bread with ripe olives, a piece of sheep's-head cheese, and a jug of wine. And the poor clumsy fellow set to work nibbling at it, all the time grumbling, with a long face.

"Such bread as she made," he observed with a quaver in his voice, "no one else could ever make. Just as if it were made of real meal. And with a handful of wild fennel, she would make a soup to lick your fingers over! Now I shall have to buy bread at the shop of that thief, _mastro_ Puddo; and as for hot soup, I sha'n't have any more, when I come home wet as a fresh-hatched chicken. And I shall have to go to bed with a cold stomach. Only the other night, while I was watching with her, after I had been digging and grubbing all day on the hill, and caught myself snoring as I sat next the bed, so tired I was, the poor soul said to me: 'Go and get a mouthful of something to eat. I left the soup to keep hot on the hearth.' And she was always thinking about my comfort, and about the house, and whatever was to be done, and this thing and that thing; and she could not come to an end of speaking or of giving her last directions, like one who is going off on a long journey, and I heard her constantly muttering between waking and sleeping. And how contentedly she went off to the other world!

With the crucifix on her breast, and her hands folded over it. She has no need of Ma.s.ses and rosaries, saint that she was. Money spent on the priest would be money thrown away."

"World of tribulation!" exclaimed a neighbor. "_Comare_ Angela's a.s.s is like to die of the colic."

"But my misfortunes are heavier," ended _compare_ Meno, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "No, don't make me eat any more, for the mouthfuls fall like lumps of lead into my stomach. You eat something, you poor innocent, for you don't understand what you've lost. Now you have no one any longer to wash you and brush your hair.

Now you haven't a mamma any more to shelter you under her wings like a setting hen, and you are ruined, as I am. I found her for you, but a second stepmother like her you won't get, my daughter!"

The child with bursting heart put up her lip again, and stuck her fists into her eyes.

"No, you can't possibly get along alone," interposed _comare_ Sidora.

"You must find another wife for the sake of this poor little motherless girl, left in the midst of the street."

"And how shall I get along? And my colt? And my house? And who'll look after the hens? Let me weep, _comare_ Sidora! It would have been better if I had died instead of that good soul."

"Hush, hush! you don't know what you are saying, and you don't know what a house without its head is!"

"That is true," a.s.sented _compare_ Meno, comforted.

"Just take example from poor _comare_ Angela! First, her husband died; then her grown-up son, and now her a.s.s is also dying."

"The a.s.s ought to be bled in the belly, if it has the colic," said _compare_ Meno.

"Come, you know all about such things," suggested the neighbor. "Do a work of charity for the sake of your wife's soul."

_Compare_ Meno got up to go to _comare_ Angela's, and the little orphan ran behind him like a chicken, now that she had no one else in the world. _Comare_ Sidora, good housewife that she was, called him back.

"And the house? How have you left it, now that there is no one there to look after it?"

"I locked the door, and besides cousin Alfia lives opposite, and will keep an eye on it."

Neighbor Angela's a.s.s lay stretched out in the midst of the yard, with his muzzle cold and his ears hanging, every now and then kicking his four legs into the air whenever the colic made him draw in his sides like a pair of bellows. The widow crouching in front of him on the rocks, with her hands clenching her gray hair, and her eyes dry and despairing, was watching him, pale as a corpse.

_Compare_ Meno manoeuvred round the animal, touching his ears, looking into his lifeless eyes, and when he saw that the blood was still oozing from the punctured vein under the belly, drop by drop, and coagulating in a black ma.s.s on his hairy skin, he remarked:

"So you've had him bled, have you?"

The widow fixed her dark eyes on his face without speaking, and nodded her "yes."

"Then there's nothing more to do," said _compare_ Meno, and he continued to stare at the a.s.s, which stretched itself out on the stones, stiffly, with its hair all rumpled, like a dead cat.

"It is G.o.d's will, sister!" said he to comfort her. "We are ruined, both of us!"

He had gone round by the widow's side and squatted down on the stones, with his little daughter between his knees, and both of them continued to gaze at the poor beast, which from time to time threshed the air with its legs as if it were in the agonies of death.

_Comare_ Sidora, when she had got the bread safely out of the oven, also came into the yard with the cousin Alfia, who had put on her new gown and wore her silk handkerchief on her head, all ready for a bit of gossip, and _comare_ Sidora said to _compare_ Meno, drawing him aside,--

"_Curatolo_ Nino won't give you his third daughter, for at your house the women die off like flies, and he loses the dowry. And then la Santa is too young, and there's the risk that she'd fill your house with children."

"If only one could be sure of boys! But there's always the danger of girls coming. Oh, I am so unfortunate!"

"Well, there's the cousin Alfia. She is no longer young, and she has property,--the house and a bit of vineyard."

_Compare_ Meno fixed his eyes on the cousin Alfia, who with her arms a-kimbo was pretending to look at the a.s.s, and then he said, "That's so! One might think of that. But I am so very unlucky!"

_Comare_ Sidora interrupted him,--

"Think of those who are more unlucky than you are!"

"No one is, I tell you. I shall never find another wife like her, I shall never be able to forget her, even if I married ten times. And this poor little orphan will never forget her, either."

"Calm yourself! You'll forget her fast enough. And the little girl will forget her, too. Didn't she forget her own mother? But just look at poor neighbor Angela, whose a.s.s is dying, and she hasn't got anything else. She'll never be able to forget it."

_Comare_ Alfia saw that it was a favorable moment for her to approach, and drawing a long face, she began to eulogize the dead woman. She had with her own hands helped to lay her out on the bier, and had put over her face a fine linen handkerchief, of which she had a goodly store, as may be imagined.

Then _compare_ Meno, with his heart melting within him, turned to his neighbor Angela, who was sitting motionless, as if she had been turned to stone.

"I suppose you'll have the a.s.s skinned won't you? At least get some money for his pelt."