Piccino did not know how long they were out together before Maria came to find them. The donkey had a beautiful breakfast, and Piccino ate his piece of black bread without anything to add to its flavor, because his mother was at the time in great trouble and very poor, and there was scarcely the bread itself to eat. Piccino toddled along quite peacefully, however, and when he came upon a space where there were red and yellow tulips swaying in the soft air he broke off a fine handful, and when the donkey lay down he sat by it and began to stick the beautiful, flaring things round his hat, as he had seen Maria stick things round hers. It was a torn, soft felt hat, with a pointed crown and a broad rim, and when he put it on again, with its adornment of red and yellow flowers sticking up and down, and falling on his soft, thick curls, he was a strangely beautiful little thing to see, and so like a picture that he scarcely seemed like a real child at all, but like a lovely, fantastic little being some artist had arranged to put on canvas. He was sitting in this way, looking out to where he could see a bit of blue sea through a break in the hills, when Maria came running towards him. “The donkey!” she cried, “the donkey!” She had been crying and looked excited, and took him by the hand, dragging him towards home. His legs were so short and he was so little that it always seemed as if she dragged him. She was an excitable child, and always went fast when she had an object in view. Piccino was used to excitement. They all shouted and screamed and gesticulated at each other when any trifling thing happened. His mother and her neighbors were given to tears and cries and loud ejaculations upon the slightest provocation, as all Italian peasants are, so he saw nothing unusual in Maria’s coming upon him like a whirlwind and exclaiming disjointedly with tears. He wondered, however, what the donkey could have to do with it, and evidently the donkey wondered too, for she got up and trotted after them down the road. But when they reached the house it was very plain that the thing which had occurred was not a trifle, or usual. Piccino saw an old man standing before the door talking to his mother. At least, he was trying to get in a word edgeways now and then, while the mother wept and beat her breast and poured forth a torrent of bewailing, mingled with an avalanche of scolding addressed to her husband, who stood near her, looking at once sheepish and ill-tempered. “Worthless brute and pig,” she proclaimed; “idle, wicked animal, who will not work to help me to feed his children. It is only I who work and the donkey who helps me. Without her we should starve—starve! And he sells her—poor beast!—sells her to get money for his wickedness and gluttony. And I am to starve without her—a fine thing! And he brings to my door the thief he has sold her to.”