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He makes me laugh, because, tall and broad as he is, he has a jacket, trousers, and sleeves which are too small for him, and too short; a cap which will not stay on his head; a threadbare cloak; coarse shoes; and a necktie which is always twisted into a cord. Dear Garrone! it needs but one glance in thy face to inspire love for thee. All the little boys would like to be near his bench.
Then he grasped his son by the nose, and shook him, saying to us, "Boys, you must love this fellow, for he is a flower of a man of honor; I tell you so myself!" And then we all laughed, except Garrone.
We were standing in a group on the sidewalk, watching them: Garrone, squeezed into his clothes, which were too tight for him, was biting at a large piece of bread; Votini, the well-dressed boy, who always wears Florence plush; Precossi, the son of the blacksmith, with his father's jacket; and the Calabrian; and the "little mason"; and Crossi, with his red head; and Franti, with his bold face; and Robetti, too, the son of the artillery captain, the boy who saved the child from the omnibus, and who now walks on crutches.
Only it pains me to see Garrone in mourning, and my poor mistress of the primary, who is thinner and whiter than ever, and who coughs with ever-increasing violence. She walks all bent over now, and salutes me so sadly! Friday, 26th. You are now beginning to comprehend the poetry of school, Enrico; but at present you only survey the school from within.
When one of us ran back to obtain the momentum for leaping a ditch, he ran to the other side, and held out his hands to us; and as Precossi was afraid of cows, having been tossed by one when a child, Garrone placed himself in front of him every time that we passed any. We mounted up to Santa Margherita, and then went down the decline by leaps, rolls, and slides.
Garrone carried a gourd filled with white wine; Coretti, his father's soldier-canteen, full of red wine; and little Precossi, in the blacksmith's blouse, held under his arm a two-kilogramme loaf. We went in the omnibus as far as Gran Madre di Dio, and then off, as briskly as possible, to the hills. How green, how shady, how fresh it was!
My father introduced Garrone to her, saying: "Here he is. This lad is not only a good boy; he is a man of honor and a gentleman." And the boy dropped his big, shaggy head, with a sly smile at me.
Derossi halted every moment to tell us the names of the plants and insects. I don't understand how he manages to know so many things. And Garrone nibbled at his bread in silence; but he no longer attacks it with the cheery bites of old, poor Garrone! now that he has lost his mother. But he is always as good as bread himself.
How often Precossi comes to school with an empty stomach and nibbles in secret at a roll which Garrone has given him, or at an apple brought to him by the schoolmistress with the red feather, who was his teacher in the first lower class. But he never says, "I am hungry; my father does not give me anything to eat."
I thank you, Derossi, my admirable companion, for your prompt and kind explanations, for you have made me understand many of the most difficult things, and overcome stumbling-blocks at examinations; and you, too, Stardi, you brave and strong boy, who have showed me how a will of iron succeeds in everything: and you, kind, generous Garrone, who make all those who know you kind and generous too; and you too, Precossi and Coretti, who have given me an example of courage in suffering, and of serenity in toil, I render thanks to you: I render thanks to all the rest.
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