[2] ‘Chiodacci;’ ‘chiodi,’ nails; ‘chiodacci,’ old rusty nails. [↑]
THE GLUTTONOUS GIRL.[1]
There was a poor woman who went out to work by the day. She had one idle, good-for-nothing daughter, who would never do any work, and cared for nothing but eating, always taking the best of everything for herself, and not caring how her mother fared.
One day the mother, when she went out to her work, left the girl some beans to cook for dinner, and some pieces of bacon-rind[2] to stew along with them. When the pieces of bacon-rind were nicely done, she took them out and ate them herself, and then found a pair of dirty old shoe-soles, which she pared in slices, and put them into the stew for her mother.
When the poor mother came home, not only were there no pieces of bacon which she could eat, but the beans themselves were rendered so nasty by the shoe-soles that she could not eat them either. Determined to give her daughter a good lesson, once for all, on this occasion, she took her outside her cottage door, and beat her well with a stick.
Just as she was administering this chastisement, a farmer[3] came by.
‘What are you beating this pretty lass for?’ asked the man.
‘Because she will work so hard at her household duties that she works on Sundays and holidays the same as common days,’ answered the mother, who, bad as her daughter was, yet had not the heart to give her a bad character.
‘That is the first time I ever heard of a mother beating her child for doing too much work; the general complaint is that they do too little. Will you let me have her for a wife? I should like such a wife as that.’