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Updated: June 10, 2025
When the fourth grade is once finished, then good by! we shall never see each other again: I shall never see them again at my bedside when I am ill, Garrone, Precossi, Coretti, who are such fine boys and kind and dear comrades, never more! Thursday, 20th. Why "never more," Enrico? That will depend on yourself.
Garrone was in the head-master's office yesterday when Nelli's mother, that blond woman dressed in black, came in to get her son excused from the new exercises. Every word cost her an effort; and as she spoke, she held one hand on her son's head. "He is not able to do it," she said to the head-master.
Garrone, too, who is strong in arithmetic, helped all he could; and he even assisted Nobis, who, finding himself in a quandary, was quite gentle. Stardi remained motionless for more than an hour, with his eyes on the problem, and his fists on his temples, and then he finished the whole thing in five minutes. The master made his round among the benches, saying: "Be calm! Be calm!
Garrone profited by the occasion to murmur some words, I know not what, in the ear of the master; and he, turning towards the four culprits, said, abruptly, "I forgive you." Thursday, 27th. My schoolmistress has kept her promise which she made, and came to-day just as I was on the point of going out with my mother to carry some linen to a poor woman recommended by the Gazette.
No one speaks to him, no one says good by to him when he goes out; there is not even a dog who would give him a suggestion when he does not know his lesson. And he cannot endure any one, and he pretends to despise Derossi more than all, because he is the head boy; and Garrone, because he is beloved by all.
Therefore love and respect above all others, among your companions, the sons of the soldiers of labor; honor in them the toil and the sacrifices of their parents; disregard the differences of fortune and of class, upon which the base alone regulate their sentiments and courtesy; reflect that from the veins of laborers in the shops and in the country issued nearly all that blessed blood which has redeemed your country; love Garrone, love Coretti, love Precossi, love your little mason, who, in their little workingmen's breasts, possess the hearts of princes; and take an oath to yourself that no change of fortune shall ever eradicate these friendships of childhood from your soul.
On my return to school, the first thing I heard was some bad news. Garrone had not been there for several days because his mother was seriously ill. She died on Saturday. Yesterday morning, as soon as we came into school, the teacher said to us: "The greatest misfortune that can happen to a boy has happened to poor Garrone: his mother is dead. He will return to school to-morrow.
The people saw, and instantly understood, and several persons ran up with their fists raised; but Garrone thrust himself between, crying: "Do ten men of you set on one boy?" Then they ceased, and a policeman seized Garoffi by the hand and led him, pushing aside the crowd as he went, to a pastry-cook's shop, where the wounded man had been carried.
The little hero, the saviour of the mother of his mother, stabbed by a blow from a knife in the back, had rendered up his beautiful and daring soul to God. Tuesday, 18th. The poor little mason is seriously ill; the master told us to go and see him; and Garrone, Derossi, and I agreed to go together.
And as he sat thus bent together, with his blouse a little open in front, I saw on his bare and robust breast the gold cross which Nelli's mother had presented to him, when she learned that he protected her son. But it was necessary to tell him sometime that I was going away. I said to him: "Garrone, my father is going away from Turin this autumn, for good. He asked me if I were going, also.
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