A LITTLE THIEF.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11749, 25 November 1903, Page 3

A LITTLE THIEF.

Br Ocib* (Authorof "Two'tittlt Wooden Shoes" ** Oildero.v," " A limine I'art.v," _c., _«.) It'tran 11 warm night- in February; there w«.i the went e>f turcix»us and violets al-u-aely .In ibe* air, and the Arno wa* silverttl by tho light of a full moon, as it flowed under th* ardi« of the I'onte Vecchirt. A small boy wa« leaning over the parapet and g—zitur at ibe water when he ought to have* been in bed. But his bed was only it bit. of sucking, with .some dead maize leaves underneath it;'and lie liked better the radiant moonlight and the movements of the fresh, clear, pungent night air. It was past midnight by an bour, and except a few carriages, there was little traffic on the nortlierii quay, where he stood wishing and dreaming in a vague half-unconscious way, for he was a child who had once been happy. That time seemed far away. His family name was a fine and ancient one, but he was only called Lillino now. His parents were dead; he had only an old great-grandmother, bedridden in the one room in Oltranio, where he lived with her. He kept her and himself by selling matches, and he was as thin as a match himself, but w_3 a pretty boy, with his great brown eyes and his loose auburn curls and such a wistful, pleading smile, that hardly any girl or woman passed him without buying, and no dog without a kindly dab of the tongue. He was not like the town Monello, who trades, and traffics, and begs, and teases, and skips and shouts, in the Italian streets. He wm always ehy and silent, and shrank from his noisy fellow-vendors, and never said a word to those who bought of him, but only liftedttfl* heavy long-lashed eyelids and., if thegaae which met his in return *was a kind one,, smiled. '

His boisterous companions jeered and joked and nicknamed him the little gentleman, but even they were not very rough with him. There was something in him which checked tlAir tongues and tied their hands, a subtle difference which impressed respect on their rude tempers. One of them called hira *_1 bimbo Gesu." His mother, bad died at his birth, and his father bad shot himself after losing all he possessed at -gambling club; the offspring of a secret marriage, the child was left to his foster-raoth_va good woman, who cultivated a little farm on the hills above Impruneta. '■*.-■' She and her spouse maintained him for seven years ;• then the husband deserted her and emigrated, and a year later she was killed by the steam tram near the Gelsomino, and there was only her old mother left, the aged creature whom he called his "Nonna." •''■' She was turned out of their little farm, and clinging t$ the child, and the child to her, they went" down into the city to live, and she roemkd silken hose and be sold matches. *V ■ It was only} ill this last year, his tttith year, that the)veins of her legs swelled so much that thetkept her bedridden, and her sight failed hit also, and the matches became their only support. One by one all the little objects that' his Nonna had brought with her into the town were sold, and there remained nothing but the ragged clothes which covered them both and a few miserable necessary things. They would have died of hunger and of cold but for the charity of lhd»e who were not much better off than themielves, and for the occasional alms which ladies, passing in the streets, arrested by the pathetic beauty of Lillino s face, put into his amall thin hand. This was not begging, for everyone took a boot matches, knowing that if they did not they would cause him trouble with the police, for in theory begging is forbidden. ! Lillino's body was in the street*, but hi* soul was hi the country. It waa three years sine*; he had seen it, but he had never ceased;to think of it. "Let us go back, Ndna-* Let us go back," he said continually. ' But th© poor old bedridden woman eouWianly cry feebly and answer, "Ohj my deajrkv who would take us there? i Who would keep a* when we got there? iWe ar* h«r# kod here we must .abide. [ right somebody would .bekinder to you and catty you out of this cruel place— all Jrtone* and noiae and clatter, and full of food and .drink for those whose bellies are full already, and never a bit or drop for those who starve in, it." "Po not die, Nonna," said Lillino, clasp- ! ing hi* arm* about her. "Do not die and go away into the earth. Pray, pray, do r.*i. I have only you." • 'My poor'little one, and what good am I?"* she murmured, laying her hand in blearing on his head. "An old log, not even good for burning, for I have no sap left iw mc. Alas! alas!" But she wa* all be had to care for, thia bundle of rags under her rugged. coverlet, and he had known her all his life; she had been always exceedingly good to him, and in that time, though already aged, had been a strong and hearty woman; and his earliest memories had been of merrily ruhnuig beside her, with his hand on her skirt, to cut water-cresses in the ditches, or drive the ducks to the rivulet, or gather olives, chestnut-, blackberries, wood-straw-berries, or do any one of those other lighter labours which occupy the old people and tho young children in the fields and woods, and make everybody useful from three years old to ninety.. Now Nonna waa of mc no more; and Lillino tried with all his might to do hi* utmost to be of use enough for two. He never doubted that lie belonged to her, or rather he never thought about it; he hod always Been her near him, and he hud always heard Mamma Bona, whom he had been taught to believe wa* his mother, call her grandmother.; No one had ever told him that he had patrician blood in his veins, i Mamma Rosa had always intended to tell him the story of his parentage when lie should be older, but death had come to her in crushing suddenness, grinding her spine under th* accursed iron j wheela, and, like *o many others of her claw, she had not set her house in order whilst yet there had been time. Even if he had known of his birth it would have made but little difference to him in his helpless childhood; he would not have been lee* poor, lew hungry, less friendless, and a certain pride and virility which were underneath his. feeble ignorance and impotenc* -would have kept him from seeking out tbos* by whom he had been disowned and abandoned. Ibis pjor old creature, scarcely alive, except in the warmth of her affections and the piiuis of; her limbs, was all he had on earth, and he clung to her with the tenacity of a tender and timid nature. His idea was that if only he could get Nonna back to the- country she would become well and strong once more, and able to walk out in tho»e*green places and amongst those grassy streamlet* which neither she nor he had ever forgotten. "I am mire she would get well,"- he thought, as he leaned over the stone parapet and watched the river glide- away under the moon. But how to carry her there? She was ; like a log, as she said, with limbs which were wholly useles*, without power to move any part of her except her lips, dependent on her neighbour* for every bit and drop. Nothing but a miracle could ever raise her again on her feet; but Lili lino believed in miracles, or, more truly speaking, miracle- seemed natural to him— a constant part of his daily life. True, he aaw them no more in the street* and the home*, but lie saw them in th* frescoes, in the sculptures, in the carvings in the churches, and he thought the hah and the blind and tlie sick could all be cured if someone unseen and unknown would be good enough to do it. But all he saw and heard ia the unkind street* began to make him feel that the real meaning of miracles was money; that strange, dirty, ugly paper thing which was, he sow, so powerful ia _nch amaxing way*. What wa* it, if not a miracle, that a scrap of soiled paper, crumpled and dogeared, could procure bread for the hungry and wine for the weak? Even those blackrimmed bronre coins—how much they could do, only passing from hand to hand! Who gave so much money to some people, and left others with none at all? This disparity seemed as strange to Lillino a* ; t i bo* teamed to ao m__y Mtm and tofts

through so many centum*; an injnttice which can never be repaired, try how the setts and sages may to redress the uneven balance. • Lillino had not much understanding, and Miiuima'RetKit'had been-too busy, herself all day long to attend te> his education, either moral or mrntat. He greped his way as he e-ould to his-few ideas, and his thoughts were confused and tangled. But these, two were clear to him. Norma would get well if i>he went back to the country, and with money *h« could be taken there, carried, be was not t-ure how. but. in some way back to thoFe vineyard* and pastures and running brooks where his babyhood bad been spent, and her whole life had passed. But. the extremely scanty means he ever gained did not even suffice to keep life in himself nnd her, and pay for their one room tinder the roof. This night, as he leaned over the wall, the moon was at the full, and the water was high; it had a strange attraction for him as it flowed towards the weir reflecting the long double .lines of the lamps. He came away from it reluctantly, not to be scolded by the person of the house for being out too late. He went up the Vue Serruagli and into the Via delle Calda, one of ths oldest in Oltrarno, and towards a block, grim house of stone, opposite the wall and the tree* of a part of the Torrigiajini Gardens. This was where he lived, with many others as poor, and the garret which he and the old woman rentecT was a mere nook under the eaves. As he drew near it, on the moonlit flags of the old street, he saw an object shining; his feet touched it, he picked it up; it was a little bag of golden chain work with a gold snap; he opened it; he saw it was full of coins —-such coins as he had never seen in his life, ,*xcept in little bowls in moneychangers' windows. The Madonna or Mamma Rosa had sent it. Nothing else occurred to him. It was a miracle! An answer to his prayer 1 He slipped his hand, which had closed on it into his ragged shirt, and took hi* homeward way, his ears singing and his brain turning, and his heart throbbing in his persuasion that Someone in heaven, Someone had heard aad answered his prayer! Surely it was Mamma Rosa, Bitting now beside the Madonna! He thought he heard her saying on the Madonna* right hand: "Dear and Holy One, let mc send something to my little Lillino." Oh, yes, he felt sure that it was Mamma Rosa. Had she not always given him all that she had, and did she

not know now much he -wanted to take Nonna back to the country? Momma Rosa had always taught him, indeed, that what was other people's property he must never touch or take, but this thing was no one's; it was lying in his path; it was plainly, put there by some meraful h*otsik\ was•* miraculous -gUt* '*, g»" *' A^s ; hSavenly*"'best, who were bo' much kinder than, these on earth'

' |[c climbed the steep atone stairs, ninetythree from 4 ,tbt» basement, to attic, dark, slippery, foul-sumelling, full of dust and mud and cobw*bs; he hugged the JiUle purse in' bis breast, he smiled to himself radiantly as he 1 climbed up the Ktcps oas, by one with tired, aching feet. He-open-ed the wooden door by its latch and gently I entered the room, for Nonna might be, asleep, and it irould harm her to startle' her, even to tell her such good tidings. Through the unglazed hole in the wall, j [ which served as a window; the moon-rays" | were shining, coming (.over tho Torrigiauni treea; they shone on the wretched bed of leaves and sacking, the old woman, was lying on lier back. Her face'looked very peaceful, lean, yellow, and wrinkled though it was. . j "She is asleep," he thought; it would be wrong"to awaken, her yeven to/ hear ' of the gift, frojn Mamma Rosa. Tfoiselesily". he ran aero** the brick floor, and eat down on his own bit of auclriag, and began to think. Now he had all this j money it would ; ho easy to move his, Nonita out of tlieciby and carry her up, up, up, along the green and gracious ascent of the hills, and never stop until she could be set down ui_der the peach boughs and the walnut leaves where tho little brimming brooks wero running amidst the grass. He opened the pretty bag again,»and poured the gold coins out upon tho sacking. The moon-raj* shone also upon them. He counted them. . There were twenty. What they weio worth he did not know; but a great de«j,he felt sure. With them Nonna would to able to buy their farm, and they fouli live happily there, both of them, for ever, seeing the blossoms and the fruits com* and go. He longed'to .wake her, but he dared not; one of the women had. told him never

to disturb her when JEfcW sjUml she would be when she did awak* and heard that they could both gohotoe!. There wa» a carter who lived ia the house; lie would take them up into the hills, making a couch of hay- jn the cart for Uonna; that would" be .easy to. do, when •oncs-«b*yicc_ld; givei luV a mmp€ gold piece for hia trouble. ■ Oijee uetf all the rest would follow of iUehV". Wa** onco she could see the green gam again, and see the buds on the jruit tree*, ths would .begin to nwvi\ her* limbs and get back her strength, and they wonM patf to .have » mass eaid every dar ia Ins diurch, up and above axaoogit the olivs«, "a mass' of'thanksgiving "to the Mukm*>

jmft Mamma Rosa. • * * He had only eaten a bit of black bread allele day, and his brain was alttU* dim; and his thoughts -were not very, clear. He had been, walking about on the sto_s* ' 'ever since morning. . His Jbead ached and his feet ached, and lis brow and lips were hot and dry, but he was so happy.. moon looked at him over the trees, and seemed to .smile; he lay down with 'his arms outstretched, so that they esaftraosd the motionless body of his only friend, and his hands, clasping the lituo pttrss,' rested upon* the rags which cowred^bsr. "She'will be so glad'when'aha awakes," he thought; "when she awakes stA'smes we can go home." ' -iV Then 'he, too, fell asleep,' ana dreafeqid of angels and fountains of goW& and UWJs red-throated, singing ing fruit-trees, and grassy ;patSa; betisatb. the vines, and brown rippling rivulets, and Mamma Rosa standing enulinf with, tvs sun about her feet, and saying, "Qar Lsfdy sent mc." t ■ Then his sleep became too deep tot dreams, and be breathed deeply,' unconsciously, whilst ths moon passed upward and its light ceased to shine upon sbl* face and that of his Nonna. The trampling of feet on. lb* brick Soar aroused him; it rude hand clutch*, his shoulder and another seised the gold. "Hero is the- thief," said a brutal voios> "and here is -tbs lady's purse." "The little heartless wretch 1" said a voice as rude, "Look! He is safe hers), he'thinks, because tbe- ola woauut- is dead!" „ ' "•