The tree had never even dreamed of anything so beautiful!
Then the children came and danced about the tree, singing a Christmas song. The father played on his violin, and the baby sat in her mother’s arms, smiling and cooing.
“Now I know what I was made for,” thought the spruce tree; “I was intended to give joy to the little ones, because I, myself, am so small and humble.”
A LITTLE ROMAN SHEPHERD[5]
CAROLINE SHERWIN BAILEY
His name was Bruno and he lived a long, long way from here on the Roman Campagna. His house was a pointed hut thatched with straw, and back of it was the fold where the sheep lived, and then, for miles and miles, there was no other living thing for a little boy to see. There was no one to play with; there was nothing for a little boy to do but tend the sheep and milk the goats and wish, oh, so hard, that he might go on that long Appian Way to the gate of St. Sebastian and to Rome, on the other side.
Piccola had told him about Rome. Piccola’s father bought wool and sold it to the traders at Rome. Twice a year Piccola and her father came out to the Campagna at shearing time. The father haggled over the lira he must pay Bruno’s father. Piccola and Bruno sat under an olive tree, their hands tightly clasped, as Piccola told Bruno of Rome.
“You should see it at the festa of Christmas,” she exclaimed. “Every shop is full of lights in the evening and the flower carts stand at all the corners. There is a manger and Babe in the chapel and,” Piccola’s voice was rich with wonder, “there is a box that talks in a shop on the Corso.”
“I don’t believe you; how could it talk? What makes it talk?” Bruno asked; but this Piccola could not tell.
“It talks—that is all I know,” she said, “and it sings,” and she might have told more but her father came and she must say good-by to Bruno. In a moment he could see nothing of Piccola but the flash of her little scarlet and green skirt and the blue cornflower she wore in her black braids. Then there was only a cloud of dust to hide the yellow cart wheels, and Piccola was gone—to Rome where there was a box that would talk and sing.
There came long, sweet, all-alike days for Bruno and the sheep. The wheat grew yellow and heavy to breaking with sweetness and Bruno watched the harvesters. The olives ripened, and the grapes, and the figs. Then the sun set earlier, and the nights were chilly with frost, and Bruno and his father put warm cloaks made of skin over their blue smocks.