Heart (de Amicis)/My Schoolmates
MY SCHOOLMATES
Tuesday, 25th.
The boy who sent the postage-stamp to the Calabrian is the one I like best of all. His name is Garrone: he is the biggest boy in the class; he is about fourteen years old; his head is large, his shoulders broad; he is good, as one can see when he smiles; but it seems as though he always thought like a man. I already know
several of my classmates. Another one I am taken with is named Coretti, and he wears chocolate-colored trousers and a catskin cap: he is always jolly; he is the son of a huckster of wood, who was a soldier in the war of 1866, in the squadron of Prince Umberto, and they say that he has three medals. There is little Nelli, a poor hunchback, a weak boy, with a thin face. There is one who is very well dressed, who always wears fine Florentine plush, and is named Votini. On the bench in front of me there is a boy who is called Muratorino (“the little mason”) because his father is a mason: his face is as round as an apple, with a nose like a small ball; he possesses a special talent: he knows how to make a hare's face, and they all get him to do it, and then they laugh. He wears a little ragged cap, which he carries rolled up in his pocket like a handkerchief. Beside Muratorino sits Garoffi, a long, thin, silly fellow, with the nose and beak of a screech-owl, and very small eyes, who is always trading in little pens and images and match-boxes, and who writes the lesson on his nails, in order that he may read it on the sly. Then there is a young gentleman, Carlo Nobis, who seems very haughty; and he is between two boys I like,—one the son of a blacksmith, clad in a jacket which reaches to his knees, who is pale, as though from illness, who always has a frightened air, and who never laughs; and the other with red hair, who has a withered arm, and carries it hung in a sling from his neck; his father has gone away to America, and his mother goes about peddling pot-herbs. And there is another curious fellow,—my neighbor on the left,—Stardi—small and thickset, with no neck,—a gruff fellow, who speaks 
A GENEROUS DEED
to no one, and doesn't seem to understand much, but stands watching the master without winking, his brow lined with wrinkles, and his teeth set; and if he is questioned when the master is speaking, he makes no reply the first and second times, and the third time he gives a kick. And beside him there is a bold, cunning face, belonging to a boy named Franti, who has already been expelled from another district. There are, in addition, two brothers who are dressed exactly alike, who resemble each other to a hair, and both of whom wear caps of Calabrian cut, with a peasant's plume. But handsomer than all the rest, the one who has the most talent, who will surely be the head this year also, is Derossi; and the master, who has already perceived this, always questions him. But I like Precossi, the son of the blacksmith, the one with the long jacket, who seems sickly. They say that his father beats him; he is very timid, and every time that he addresses or touches any one, he says, “Excuse me”, and gazes at them with his kind, sad eyes. But Garrone is the biggest and the best.