Just where the white highroad, following the line of the old crater, curves and is hidden by a group of dark ilex trees, the women halted beside the line of gay painted carts waiting to carry the strawberries to Rome. We discovered the carretta of Leandro’s uncle, a fine affair painted blue and yellow, with long shafts and a comfortable seat beneath a red and white striped awning. Oreste, the driver, a shrewd peasant, in spite of his loutish, grumpy manner, has a certain family resemblance to his cousin the waiter, but how contact with the world has sharpened Leandro’s wits, polished his manners! Oreste and Leandro! Don’t you love the classic names? They linger here in the country and help to bring back to you Theocritus and the golden age of Magna Grecia.
“At what hour do you start?” J. asked Oreste.
“At ten o’clock.”
“It must be a very long drive; do you not get dreadfully tired? what time do you reach Rome?”
Oreste answered my remarks in the order they were put.
“The distance is twenty miles; when I am tired I sleep; with luck I shall reach the gates of Rome by four o’clock in the morning.”
“Who minds the cart while you sleep?”
“Lupetto here;” he patted the dearest little dog on the seat beside him. Lupetto looks like a young fox, he has the brightest eyes, the smallest pointed ears, and a soft furry tan coat clipped like a lion’s.
“As long as Lupetto is quiet and I hear this music,” he touched with his long carter’s whip the string of bells round the horse’s neck, “I doze in peace. When the bells stop jingling or Lupetto barks I rouse myself to find out what is the matter.”
“Have you ever been robbed?”