Chapter IV

"Where's the scaldino, grandmother?" were Tuttu's first words, when he woke up to find himself lying on a little bed in a long room, with Maddalena and Father Giacomo bending over him. "We saved up.... It's all for you...." he muttered brokenly, "Have you got it?"

"Yes, my lamb. A beautiful one it is," said the old woman, the tears streaming down her wrinkled face. "You lie still and get better, my Tuttu."

"I will, grandmother, but I want you to see the surprise inside. It's from weeding.... Father Giacomo will tell you. I'm so tired, grandmother.... How's Bianca?"

"Very well, Tuttu, she has only a slight scratch.... Oh, my poor boy!" and Father Giacomo's voice broke.

"Is it near evening?" said Tuttu, after a few minutes, during which he lay moving his head restlessly.

"It soon will be," said the Padre. "Why do you ask, Tuttu?"

"The fiasco.... Do you think I may put a bean in to-night, or was I too angry?"

"You may, Tuttu," said Father Giacomo, turning away his head. "If you tell me where it is, I will send for it."

"By the melon bed. Tutti knows. He'll bring it," whispered Tuttu. "It's nearly full—only four days more. Put one in for Tutti."

As the setting sun streamed into the long room, Tutti crept in, holding Father Giacomo's hand; carrying the broken fiasco.

Tuttu awoke from a restless sleep as they entered, and smiled with a faint reflection of his old happy laugh. "That's right, Tutti. You have been good, haven't you?"

"Yes," quavered Tutti, lifting his terrified, tear-stained face to his brother.

"Put your bean in then, Tutti, and give me mine. It's getting so late, it's almost night-time."

Tutti held out the bean with a trembling hand, and as it dropped into the old bottle, little Tuttu gave a quiet sigh.

"It only wants four more," he said happily.

Only four more! But Tuttu might never put them in. That night he started on a long, long journey, and as the old grandmother with choking sobs placed the broken bottle on a shelf among her treasures, she turned to Tutti who was lying, worn out with grief, upon the doorstep.

"Come, my Tutti," she said, "there are only us two now. We must try and be very good to each other."

Years afterwards, Tutti, coming home on leave—for he had clung to his childish idea of being a soldier—found the broken fiasco in the corner where his grandmother had hidden it; and taking out the beans that had been lying there so long, he carried them to a little grave with a small white cross at the head of it.

"Dear Tuttu! He would like to have these growing round him," he thought, and planted them carefully amongst the flowers and grasses.

Grandmother Maddalena was too old to move out of the house now, but Father Giacomo watered the beans lovingly, and in the soft spring air they grew rapidly, so that they soon formed a beautiful tangle, hiding the cross and even the name that still stood there clearly in black letters

"Tuttu."