Then she put the eggs into the soup and
boiled them in it.
After supper I had a talk with the padrone, who told me I was
working too hard. "Totam noctem," said he in Latin, "lavoravimus
et nihil incepimus." ("We have laboured all night and taken
nothing.") "Oh!" he continued, "I have eyes and ears in my head."
And as he spoke, with his right hand he drew down his lower eyelid,
and with his left pinched the pig of his ear. "You will be ill if
you go on like this." Then he laid his hand along his cheek, put
his head on one side, and shut his eyes, to imitate a sick man in
bed. On this I arranged to go an excursion with him on the day
following to a farm he had a few miles off, and to which he went
every Friday.
We went to Borgone station, and walked across the valley to a
village called Villar Fochiardo. Thence we began gently to ascend,
passing under some noble chestnuts. Signor Bonaudo said that this
is one of the best chestnut-growing districts in Italy. A good
tree, he told me, would give its forty francs a year. This seems
as though chestnut-growing must be lucrative, for an acre should
carry some five or six trees, and there is no outlay to speak of.
Besides the chestnuts, the land gives a still further return by way
of the grass that grows beneath them. Walnuts do not yield nearly
so much per tree as chestnuts do. In three-quarters of an hour or
so we reached Signor Bonaudo's farm, which was called the Casina di
Banda.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113