The most important witness for Vanzetti was thirteen-year-old Beltrando Brini. The defense claimed he had been Vanzetti’s helper on his morning round delivering the eels. Nicknamed Dolly, he was an intelligent, nervous boy, small for his age, looking rather helpless in his Norfolk knickerbocker suit and high boots. On the night of December 23, he told the court, two men had brought a half a pig to his house in Suosso’s Lane. His father had ordered the pig for Christmas. That same night Vanzetti had stopped in to ask if the boy would help him deliver eels next day. Dolly promised he would. On that damp and muddy morning before Christmas he met Vanzetti first in front of Maxwell’s Drugstore. Near the drugstore Dolly’s father had run into him, taken one look at his boots, and told him to go home and get his rubbers. At first the boy could not find them. By the time he had located them under the stairs and hurried back to Vanzetti’s house in Cherry Street it was eight o’clock, for as he trotted along he could hear the Cordage whistle blowing. Vanzetti was putting his packages of eels in his pushcart and an extra wheelbarrow when Dolly arrived. He told the boy he had wanted to hire a horse and cart but could not find one. The two of them started out with wheelbarrow and pushcart, making their deliveries to the regular customers up and down Cherry Street, Cherry Place, Cherry Court, and finally down to Court Street. Dolly had worked from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, when Vanzetti paid him off. On Christmas Eve, Vanzetti dropped in at the Brinis’. When he left he noticed the children’s stockings hanging by the mantel and put two half-dollars in each one. On Christmas Day Vanzetti stopped in again, and Dolly thanked him for the half-dollars and showed him his Christmas presents. Katzmann began his cross-examination with deceptive gentleness, calling the boy “son” and asking if he would like to testify sitting down. As he continued, his voice hardened and he began to box the boy in with questions. How many times had he told his story? How many times had he gone over it with his parents? With Mr. Vahey? Had he learned it just like a piece at school? Who corrected him when he left something out? The district attorney stalked him through all the details of the morning: the houses where the boy had left packages, the weight of the basket he carried, the time he started and the time he finished his deliveries. Had he finished at one-fifteen, or was it one-twenty? The boy squirmed and looked pleadingly at Judge Thayer, but there was no relief coming from that stiff-robed parchment-faced figure. Young Brini had to admit that he had repeated his story a number of times to his parents and others, and that when he repeated it and omitted anything his father would correct him.