ere
brought in, and the children were told to mould in it objects that
were set before them. Paolo's teacher stood by, and nodded approvingly
as his little fingers played so deftly with the clay, his face all
lighted up with joy at this strange kind of a school-lesson.

After that he had a new and faithful friend, and, as he worked away,
putting his whole young soul into the tasks that filled it with
radiant hope, other friends, rich and powerful, found him out in his
slum. They brought better-paying work for his mother than sewing pants
for the sweater, and Uncle Pasquale abandoned the scows to become a
porter in a big shipping-house on the West Side. The little family
moved out of the old home into a better tenement, though not far
away. Paolo's loyal heart clung to the neighborhood where he had
played and dreamed as a child, and he wanted it to share in his good
fortune, now that it had come. As the days passed, the neighbors who
had known him as little Paolo came to speak of him as one who some day
would be a great artist and make them all proud. He laughed at that,
and said that the first bust he would hew in marble should be that of
his patient, faithful mother; and with that he gave her a little hug,
and danced out of the room, leaving her to look after him with
glistening eyes, brimming over with happiness.

But Paolo's dream was to have another awakening. The years passed and
brought their changes. In the manly youth who came forward as his name
was called in the academy, and stood modestly at the desk to receive
his diploma, few would have recognized the little ragamuffin who had
dragged bundles of fire-wood to the rookery in the alley, and carried
Uncle Pasquale's dinner-pail to the dump. But the audience gathered to
witness the commencement exercises knew it all, and greeted him with a
hearty welcome that recalled his early struggles and his hard-won
success. It was Paolo's day of triumph. The class honors and the medal
were his. The bust that had won both stood in the hall crowned with
laurel--an Italian peasant woman, with sweet, gentle face, in which
there lingered the memories of the patient eyes that had lulled the
child to sleep in the old days in the alley. His teacher spoke to him,
spoke of him, with pride in voice and glance; spoke tenderly of his
old mother of the tenement, of his faithful work, of the loyal manhood
that ever is the soul and badge of true genius. As he bade him welcome
to the fel