“You will see, mamma,” he said, “that I shall do like the rest.”
His mother gazed at him in silence, with an air of pity and affection. Then she remarked, in a hesitating way, “I fear lest his companions—”
What she meant to say was, “lest they should make sport of him.” But Nelli replied:—
“They will not do anything to me—and then, there is Garrone. It is enough for him to be present, to prevent their laughing.”
So he was allowed to come. The teacher with the wound on his neck, who was with Garibaldi, led us at once to the vertical bars, which are very high, and we had to climb to the very top, and stand upright on the cross plank. Derossi and Coretti went up like monkeys; even little Precossi mounted briskly, in spite of the fact that he was hindered by that jacket which extends to his knees; and in order to make him laugh while he was climbing, all the boys repeated his constant expression, “Excuse me! excuse me!” Stardi puffed, turned as red as a turkey-cock, and set his teeth until he looked like a mad dog; but he would have reached the top at the expense of bursting, and he actually did get there; and so did Nobis, who, when he reached the summit, assumed the attitude of an emperor. But Votini slipped back twice, notwithstanding his fine new suit with blue stripes, which had been made expressly for gymnastics.
In order to climb the more easily, all the boys had daubed their hands with resin, which they call colophony, and as a matter of course it is that trader of a Garoffi who provided every one with it, selling it at
