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Updated: May 26, 2025
It was fortunate that she was as sure-footed as her goats, for the way was steep and slippery, and she did not pause to take care. Over in the cave, with her hand on Beppi's curly head, she sat down to think. Her mind was not capable of arriving at any logical explanation. Two thoughts stood out clearly and beyond doubt.
"See!" she whispered excitedly to Beppi, "that is the King our King! Look at him well, for we may never be lucky enough to see him again in our whole lives." Beppi's big eyes were round with wonder. He looked. His gaze fastened on the shining sword. Then the memory that he might some day be a General returned to him, and he drew himself up very straight.
What were you doing?" He dropped his threatening tone, so incongruous with his tiny body, and coaxed softly, "please tell me, sister mine." "Silly head!" Lucia was breathing freely again, "there is nothing to tell. I heard the guns all night, and they made me restless, so I went for a walk. Go and tell Nana if you like, I don't care." Beppi's small mind returned to the subject at hand.
She thought she must have slept for hours, but now she realized that in reality she had only dozed for a few minutes. She took Beppi's hand and set about putting him to sleep. It was a difficult task. She told him story after story, but at the end of each his eyes were bright and his demand for another one as insistent as ever.
"Tell me a story," Beppi demanded when she was lying beside him once more, "I'm all awake again and my face hurts." "What shall it be about?" Lucia asked, stroking his hair. She was still trembling from the reaction of her adventure, and Beppi's warm little body snuggled close in her arms was comforting.
"Sing to me," he asked at last, sleepily, "your song," and Lucia began very softly to sing. "O'er sea the silver star brightly is glowing, Rocked now the billows are. Soft winds are blowing, Come to my bark with me. Come sail across the sea. Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia." Beppi's even breathing rewarded her efforts.
"Beppino mio, what has happened?" she asked, though there was little need to question for a deep cut in Beppi's cheek, from which the blood spurted freely, was answer enough. "My face, Lucia, it hurts me so, make it stop bleeding," Beppi pleaded, "I fell on a big rock in the garden." "Caro mio, how long ago?"
Nana met her at the door of Beppi's room; she was wringing her hands. "So you are back," she cried, "well, praise the Saints for that, I thought I should lose you both on the same day." "'Lose us, what are you talking about?" Lucia demanded, pushing past her to the bed.
The car started, and the King waved especially to Lucia as he passed, but even so great an honor could not compensate her. She was mortified to tears that her goat should have been guilty of lese majeste. No entreaties on Beppi's part could make her stay to wait for the King's return. She left him with a soldier, and went around the corner of the convent, followed by the disgraced Garibaldi.
First one soldier and then another attempted it, but none of them succeeded. After a while the fun of the chase wore off for Garibaldi, and she became angry. She had a little trick of butting that had won her Beppi's dislike, and she used it to the discomfiture of the Austrian army.
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