rsh word to Lolo, for he was lame
through her fault; she had let him fall in his babyhood, and the
mischief had been done to his hip never again to be undone. So she never
raised her voice to him, though she did often to the others,--to
curly-pated Cecco, and pretty black-eyed Dina, and saucy Bice, and
sturdy Beppo, and even to the good, manly, hard-working Tasso. Tasso was
the mainstay of the whole, though he was but a gardener's lad, working
in the green Cascine at small wages. But all he earned he brought home
to his mother; and he alone kept in order the lazy, high-tempered
Sandro, and he alone kept in check Bice's love of finery, and he alone
could with shrewdness and care make both ends meet and put _minestra_
always in the pot and bread always in the cupboard.

When his mother thought, as she thought indeed almost ceaselessly, that
with a few months he would be of the age to draw his number, and might
draw a high one and be taken from her for three years, the poor soul
believed her very heart would burst and break; and many a day at
twilight she would start out unperceived and creep into the great church
and pour her soul forth in supplication before the White Tabernacle.

Yet, pray as she would, no miracle could happen to make Tasso free of
military service: if he drew a fatal number, go he must, even though he
take all the lives of them to their ruin with him.

One morning Lolo sat as usual on the parapet of the church, Moufflou
beside him. It was a brilliant morning in September. The men at the
hand-barrows and at the stall were selling the crockery, the silk
handkerchiefs, and the straw hats which form the staple of the commerce
that goes on round about Or San Michele,--very blithe, good-natured, gay
commerce, for the most part, not got through, however, of course,
without bawling and screaming, and shouting and gesticulating, as if the
sale of a penny pipkin or a twopenny pie-pan were the occasion for the
exchange of many thousands of pounds sterling and cause for the whole
world's commotion. It was about eleven o'clock; the poor petitioners
were going in for alms to the house of the fraternity of San Giovanni
Battista; the barber at the corner was shaving a big man with a cloth
tucked about his chin, and his chair set well out on the pavement; the
sellers of the pipkins and pie-pans were screaming till they were
hoarse, "_Un soldo l'uno, due soldi tre!_" big bronze bells were booming
till they seemed to c