march past the mayor, the prefect, and many others, who presented them with books, savings-bank books, diplomas, and medals. In one corner of the pit I espied the “little mason,” sitting beside his mother. In another place there was the principal; behind him, the red head of my teacher of the second grade.
The first to pass were the pupils of the evening drawing classes—the goldsmiths, engravers, lithographers, carpenters, and masons; then those of the commercial school; then those of the Musical Lyceum, among them several girls, workingwomen, all dressed in festival attires and smiling, who were saluted with great applause. Last came the pupils of the elementary evening schools. It was a fine sight. They were of all ages, of all trades, and dressed in all sorts of ways,—men with gray hair, factory boys, artisans with big black beards. The little ones were at their ease; the men, a little embarrassed. The people clapped the oldest and the youngest but none of the spectators laughed, as they did at our festival: all faces were attentive and serious.
Many of the prize-winners had wives and children in the pit, and there were little children who, when they saw their father pass across the stage, called him by name at the tops of their voices, and signalled to him with their hands, laughing loudly. Peasants passed, and porters; they were from the Buoncompagni School. From the Cittadella School there was a bootblack whom my father knew, and the prefect gave him a diploma. After him I saw approaching a man as big as a giant, whom I fancied that I had seen several times before. It was the father of the “little
