The second night was passed as the first had been, out of doors, after a supper of hot rice paid for at an osteria,[9] a short way back along the road. Natale might have slept, as well, at the little inn, but he was too unused to roofs to dream of proposing it, and the absent-minded old landlord had not seemed to be thinking of anything but puffing away at his pipe, as Natale slipped past him and out of the dingy passage-way, after paying for his food.
A long-bodied two-wheeled cart stood outside the inn door, its shafts’ ends resting on the ground, its rear high in air, and Natale, with an instinct for sleeping above wheels, had decided to return to the cart for a night’s lodging place when the world should be dark again. But sleep overtook him as he lay waiting at the foot of a tree to which he had scrambled from the road below, and when he roused, dawn was staining the pale sky with rose color.
The next day promised to pass as the first had done,—with slipping shyly past occasional houses of entertainment along the way, with lingerings to stare into the mysterious depths of some noisy mill in league with the tumbling river, and with long, monotonous trampings, between times, along the smooth road, bordered always by the mountains and the river. As the road neared the valley, it crossed dashing streams hurrying to join their waters to the broader water of the river, and so solid was the stone masonry of the arches that one would never have known that he was crossing a bridge but for the sparkle and the laughter of the foaming water as it dashed under the road and out again.
Many times Natale, himself a small dark speck on the endless white road, looked up the long mountain slopes, green in the sunlight, purple in the shadow, and glimpsed high above him on the giddy heights the climbing roofs of some hoary old mountain town, away out of hearing of the busy river, out of reach of traveling circus wagons, and which,
“Like an eagle’s nest hangs on the crest
Of purple Apennine.”
It was past noon of the second day when Natale entered a village on a level with the highway. Here the road suddenly changed into a stone-paved street, running between high houses and echoing with the tramp of wooden-soled shoes and the patter of donkeys’ hoofs.
He stopped at the door of a sour-smelling wine shop where sat a man on a stool outside the door. To him the little boy put his question as to whether this town might perhaps be very near to the Bagni di Lucca. This man wore a red fez on his bushy, black head, and down his long, black beard trickled drops from the wine cup at his lips. The fellow did not stop his drinking long enough to reply in so many words to the question, but a decided shaking of his head and the pointing of a long, dirty finger onward sufficiently enlightened Natale, and he kept slowly on his way.
In passing a small baker’s shop, he stopped and bought a great ring of sweetish bread, and then slipping his arm through this, he went more cheerily onward. There were still many soldi left in his pocket, and surely this beautiful ring of bread would last until the Bagni di Lucca should come in sight, with, of course, the dear yellow tent set in its midst!
One of the last houses he passed as he left the town was entered through a garden by a huge wooden door opening upon the cobblestones of the street. This door stood ajar, and Natale stayed his steps for a moment to gaze through the aperture down a charming vista of trellised vines supported on crumbling white columns of masonry. Green and gold lights played over the rough paving-stones of the cloister-like colonnade through the latticework above. Halfway down this corridor, two or three girls romped and sang together, their scarlet kerchiefs and the rich blues of their skirts making dashes of vivid color in the shade where they lounged. Pale jewels of grapes, already growing pink and amethystine, crowded the vines with promise of luscious sweetness when their full time should come.