“‘Giovanni—papá—!’ No more of these tears, Natalino. You are to stay in this beautiful place, and after polenta, you are to go up to the garden and thank the lady.”
With a loud, rebellious howl, Natale sprang to his feet and rushed out into the open air. Nor did he stop until he stood among the briar bushes below the garden palings. Clenching his small grimy fists, he stood there looking up toward the many-windowed pension and shook them vehemently, while his shrill voice cried out passionately:
“I shall not stay here! I shall not go to school! I like my old hat, and I want Nonna to teach me to read. I shall never thank you, never, NEVER, NEVER!”
He had seen no one in the garden, and was only addressing the whole houseful of his enemies up there in the big yellow building with the staring windows. Why should they interfere with him? Why should any one be trying to make him wretched,—the most wretched boy in all Italy?
“Heyday! what’s all this about?” and a white-haired old man, speaking from the garden, came close to the palings and looked over at the small, threatening figure among the bushes. “I cannot understand your gibberish, if you are talking to me. You would better go away now, little boy, or some of your people will come and whip you.”
“How suddenly you stopped the noise, Mr. Grantly,” exclaimed Betty, coming up to his side. “Who was it? Why, Aunty’s little protégé, Natale! How pitiful he looks, walking away as if his feelings were hurt. You must have frightened him.”
“Not a bit of it, ma’am. He frightened me with his fierce little voice. It came suddenly, just as I was dropping off to sleep in my chair. It is a relief to have them moving on this afternoon, with their horns and drum. But that boy stays, some one tells me. Is it possible that the family agreed to give him up? I have understood that the Italians cling to each other as much as even we do in America or England. Do they really leave the child?”
“For more money than he could ever bring them by his somersaulting, yes,” Betty answered. “Sometimes I think Aunty really does not know what to do with her money,” the girl went on confidentially to the old gentleman, who was listening with interest. “Now, that boy has no desire to be taken away from ‘the evil life he is leading’ in Aunty’s estimation, and he does not wish to be sent to school and become ‘a decent man.’”
“Ah! tell me the whole plan, now. I heard something of it a few days ago.”
“It is very simple—all but getting Natale to agree to being imposed upon,” Betty went on a little vexedly. “Aunty has had the stepfather and the mother up here several times this past week to be talked to, and an old woman who seems to be the grandmother of them all. Miss Lorini has done all the interpreting, and also saw the priest about it, as Madame Cioche would not. They have agreed to leave Natale here for one year; he is to be taken care of by the priest’s mother, and to be sent to school and made ‘decent,’ poor little fellow.”