So Pietro proudly walked before them, and led the way, first to the historic church, and then to the old cemetery on Copp's Hill, near by. All this time the man was watching him curiously. "I think you and I have met before," he said at length. "Do you remember me?"
For the first time Pietro looked long and hard at the man's face. Then he cried out, "Yes, yes! I did not see before! You were the man in the car that stopped on the Amalfi road." He fairly danced for pleasure that the strange man had remembered him so long. Then he hurried on: "See! I can talk with you now! I am an American! I go to school!"
"You see," said the man laughingly, as he turned to his friend, "I can remember the face of a bright Italian boy better than I can the streets of my own city."
Then he told his friend of the help that Pietro had given when the motor car stopped on the Italian mountain side. With a few questions, he drew from Pietro his own story, and he watched the brown-eyed boy closely as they talked.
"Pietro," he said, at last, "I like you, and I want to be your friend. Keep on in school and study. Come and see me to talk things over once in a while. I'll be able to help you when it is time for you to go to work. In the meantime I can find work for your father." He gave Pietro his address, and checked the words of thanks that came pouring out. "And this," the man went on, "will give you all a Thanksgiving dinner as a reward for your work as guide this afternoon."
A bill was pressed into Pietro's hand, and the men hurried on. Pietro stood where they left him, and looked first at the bill in his hand, and then at the two men, who turned and waved their hands as they went round a corner.
So it came about that the fortunes of the Vittori family took a sudden change for the better, and there was a happy Thanksgiving dinner in their tenement—all as a result of Pietro's cheerful readiness to be of help three years before, when strangers were in trouble on an Italian mountain side.
—John Clair Minot.
Courtesy of "The Youth's Companion".
Questions
1. Near what city did the first part of this story take place?
2. In what city did the second part occur?
3. What service did Pietro do for the travelers in the first part?
4. What happened to Pietro between the first and second parts of the story?
5. Did Pietro do anything in the second part of the story similar to what he did in the first?
6. Do you think the American gentleman had a good memory?
7. Pietro was very polite and obliging, wasn't he? What two good things did he do for his family by being so?
8. What do you think "Si, si, signore" means? Why are these three words printed in italics?