"Come on, Tonin," repeated Pablo, pointing excitedly toward the brook.
The lad in the doorway shook his head and lifted his chisel meaningly, as though no additional explanation were needed.
"Oh, do, do!" urged the new-comers. "Leave your old stone-chipping for an hour and come with us. We'll let you pole all the time if you will."
"I can't," returned the other briefly.
"Please come! Come along!" insisted four alluring voices, but Pablo turned away impatiently.
"Leave that sullen Tonin alone! He'd rather bang away at his grandfather's stones than go with us on the jolliest jaunt we could name. Come on, and let him stay by himself."
Thereupon the boys ran swiftly down the adjoining slope, and Tonin Canova stepped into the house with a shrug, as though glad to be rid of them and their invitations. He did not tarry in the cleanly sunlit cabin, but hurried out to the rear garden, where an old man wearing an apron similar to his was busily tapping and chipping at a block of stone erected upon wooden supports.
"Why didn't you go with the others?" inquired the stone-cutter, looking up from his work. "You needn't have come back, because I have finished the urn for the terrace of the Villa d'Asolo, and it is too late in the afternoon to begin on the Monfumo altar ornaments. Besides, you have stood by your work pretty hard lately, and I think every boy needs a holiday once in a way."
"I don't want a holiday, grandfather."
"Bless us! What are you talking about? Who ever heard of a boy who didn't want a holiday every day in the week, if he could get it?"