Two or three always stand together in a single vat and press the grapes with their bare feet, thus forcing out the juice, which runs through an opening in the base of the vat into a wooden bucket. Some of the farmers use a machine to press the grapes, but many think it should be done, as it was in old Bible times, with the human foot. It seems that the feet know how to avoid crushing the seeds and the skins, as a machine cannot know. Rafael asked to be allowed to press the grapes in one of the vats, and after permission had been given him, Edith suddenly asked to do it also. The farmer shook his head doubtfully. "It is very hard work," he objected. Edith bade Rafael say that she was an American girl, and not afraid of hard work, and at last she was permitted to stand with the Italian boy in the vat and tread until she grew tired. However, to stand in the midst of juicy grapes means to spoil one's clothes, so the farmer's wife took Edith and Rafael into the house and dressed them like peasant children. There was much laughing and shouting from the other boys and girls over the sight of the two strange wine-treaders, and it reminded Edith of something. "Doesn't the Bible speak of the singing and laughing that go with the vintage?" she asked her mother. "Yes," answered Mrs. Sprague, "there are many references in the Bible to the vineyard and the vintage; and also to the fig trees, which seem always to be planted in the vineyard." "When I was learning in my Sunday-school lessons about the vine and the fig tree, I never dreamed that some day I should be eating grapes and ripe figs, and treading in the wine-press, as they did in olden times," said Edith. "It will be the best wine in the whole country," said the farmer, when at last Edith was lifted out, her feet crimson with the blood of the grapes. "I must see where they put it," she said, and followed to the dark wine-cellar, where the grape juice was poured into a tank and left to ferment. It was late in the afternoon when they were once more in readiness to continue their journey toward Rome. The farmer's wife, who had told them all her family history, in Italian, would have been glad to keep them over night, but Mrs. Sprague shook her head. "Tell her that the bambino is very cunning," she said to Rafael, "but we must be far along on our journey to-night." Rafael's heart sang again, "I am so glad to go!" Every moment spent in the automobile was one of joy to him. He barely noticed the queer old streets and ancient buildings of the towns through which they passed. He cared more for the rapid motion of the car, and the sensation of flying through the air; and besides, he knew well the customs of the people in the Italian towns, and there was nothing strange to him in the sight of men and women sitting at tables outside the cafés, or wandering up and down in the public promenades.