The boy, whose heart had been won by Don Bosco's kindly manner, gladly agreed to stay. After Mass, Don Bosco said to him: "What is your name, my little friend?" "Bartolomeo Garelli." "Where are you from?" "Asti." "Is your father still living?" "No, he is dead." "And your mother?" "She is dead too." "How old are you?" "I am fifteen years old." "Can you read and write?" "I don't know anything at all." "Did you make your first Communion?" "No, not yet." "Did you ever go to confession?" "I did when I was very little." "Why don't you go to Sunday-school?" "I am ashamed because the other boys are all younger than I am and know so much more, and I always have such old clothes." "If I were to teach you all by yourself, would you like to come?" "Oh I would be very glad to come, if no one would box my ears for coming." "You need not be afraid of any one. You are my friend now; no one else will have anything to say to you. When shall we begin?" "Whenever it pleases you, father." "Very well, we will begin at once." Don Bosco found that the boy did not even know how to make the sign of the cross. Yet this poor, untaught child of the street became the corner-stone, so to say, of Don Bosco's life-work. In a little while Bartolomeo brought friends of his along, and they in turn brought their friends. By the 25th of March, in 1842, there were thirty members of Don Bosco's class. Some of them were apprentices to the different trades, some were street vagabonds, and some of them grown men. The next year there were three hundred of them. Don Bosco had to find a place of meeting larger than his little sacristy; but, alas! no sooner was he well established in his new quarters than notice was given him to move. People insisted that they did not want him and his noisy, disreputable vagabonds in their own respectable neighborhood. When, at last, there seemed no hope of finding a suitable meeting place in the city for his boys he did not despair. For two months, each Sunday he led them out into the suburbs of Turin, said Mass for them in some church, then taught them under the open sky. Afterwards he let them play games and amuse themselves, and in the evening the whole crowd went back into the city, singing hymns as they went. In 1844, with the help of some kindly priests, Don Bosco opened the first night schools, teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools were soon imitated all over Italy.