“I promise,” said Beppo solemnly; “and don’t you forget about the prince either.”
Just then they heard Carlotta’s voice shouting at them, and, leaping apart, they fled to do their errands.
When breakfast had been eaten, and the animals fed, Luigi lit his pipe and stretched out on the ground beside the fire with the monkey beside him.
“Here we stay a little,” he said. “Ugolone lies there like one dead. The donkeys are tired and so am I. We have come thirty miles from Florence.”
“Ecco!” said Carlotta. “Then there is time for bean soup.” She sent Beppo for more water, and, when the kettle was bubbling on the fire, called the children to her side. “Tell me,” she said, “can you dance?”
“A little,” quavered Beppina. “Dance, then,” said the woman. Beppina reluctantly seized her skirts, and, making a dancing-school bow, took a few dainty steps and tripped over a stone.
Carlotta laughed contemptuously. “Santa Maria!” she said, “you don’t call that dancing!” Then, beckoning to her husband, she cried, “But they know nothing! They cannot earn their salt! We have made a bad bargain. Come, then, and we will teach these ignorant ones the trescone!”
Luigi grunted as he rose unwillingly from his hard couch, tied the monkey’s string about a tree branch, and came forward.
“Watch closely, both of you,” said Carlotta to the children. “It is for you to dance like Tuscans, not like marionettes. Even old Ugolone can do better.”
Once he was roused, Luigi’s weariness seemed to vanish. He suddenly seized Carlotta’s hands, and, holding her at arm’s length, began to wheel and jump, to turn and twist in all sorts of curious figures. Sometimes the dancers’ arms were linked above their heads. Sometimes they shook a lifted foot. Faster and faster they whirled, and the monkey, inspired by their example, began to leap and bound about at the end of her string, chattering wildly.