"Father! It is father!" cried the three boys in an answering shout. Then with a common thought they all stopped short, and Gigi felt them looking at him in the darkness.
"What will he think of Gigi?" he heard
Beppo whisper to his brothers.
"Sh!" warned Mother Margherita. And the man's voice sounded nearer.
"Hello, old woman!" it called gruffly.
"Well, you did come back, didn't you?
I began to believe that you had all run away."
"Run away!" There was a little pause before any one answered. And Gigi felt the elbows of the boys nudging him in the side.
"Father's angry!" they whispered. "Father is terrible when he is angry. You had better look out!"
Then Gigi knew that there was something else to fear that night. And his heart sank. Was there to be no end of his troubles?
VI
THE SILVER PIECE
The team stopped in front of a stone cottage, from the window of which the light shone hospitably. They all jumped down from the cart, and under cover of the darkness Mother Margherita hustled Gigi with the other boys into the house, while Giuseppe, the father, cared for the oxen.