"If you asked curátolo Nino for his third daughter, it would make things all right, both for the orphan and for the dowry," suggested la Licodiana.
"That's what I say. But don't speak of it to me, for now my mouth is bitter as gall."
"I wouldn't talk about it now," said comare Sidora. "Eat a bit of something, compare Meno. You are all tired out."
"No! no!" returned compare Meno several times. "Don't speak to me of eating, for I have a lump in my throat."
Comare Sidora placed before him on a stool fresh bread with ripe olives, a piece of sheep's-head cheese, and a jug of wine. And the poor clumsy fellow set to work nibbling at it, all the time grumbling, with a long face.
"Such bread as she made," he observed with a quaver in his voice, "no one else could ever make. Just as if it were made of real meal. And with a handful of wild fennel, she would make a soup to lick your fingers over! Now I shall have to buy bread at the shop of that thief, mastro Puddo; and as for hot soup, I sha'n't have any more, when I come home wet as a fresh-hatched chicken. And I shall have to go to bed with a cold stomach. Only the other night, while I was watching with her, after I had been digging and grubbing all day on the hill, and caught myself snoring as I sat next the bed, so tired I was, the poor soul said to me: 'Go and get a mouthful of something to eat. I left the soup to keep hot on the hearth.' And she was always thinking about my comfort, and about the house, and whatever was to be done, and this thing and that thing; and she could not come to an end of speaking or of giving her last directions, like one who is going off on a long journey, and I heard her constantly muttering between waking and sleeping. And how contentedly she went off to the other world! With the crucifix on her breast, and her hands folded over it. She has no need of Masses and rosaries, saint that she was. Money spent on the priest would be money thrown away."
"World of tribulation!" exclaimed a neighbor. "Comare Angela's ass is like to die of the colic."
"But my misfortunes are heavier," ended compare Meno, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "No, don't make me eat any more, for the mouthfuls fall like lumps of lead into my stomach. You eat something, you poor innocent, for you don't understand what you've lost. Now you have no one any longer to wash you and brush your hair. Now you haven't a mamma any more to shelter you under her wings like a setting hen, and you are ruined, as I am. I found her for you, but a second stepmother like her you won't get, my daughter!"
The child with bursting heart put up her lip again, and stuck her fists into her eyes.
"No, you can't possibly get along alone," interposed comare Sidora. "You must find another wife for the sake of this poor little motherless girl, left in the midst of the street."