About Three Little People Who Didn't Like To Study and Wished They Were Dumb Animals Instead of Children

I must begin by describing the Villa Almieri, as we think of it on a beautiful July day at about half past two. All the country is as quiet as if it were asleep, and the stillness is so intense that even the cicadas, the sauciest of insects, dare not disturb it.

I know from experience that some of you will skip descriptions, as you always feel that time spent on them is thrown away; but, just imagine a beautiful white house with green Venetian blinds, with two great Salamanca grape vines climbing up over the porch and sending out their tendrils under the broad window sills.

But where are the grapes? You can see only here and there a bunch far away from the windows. You know it is a scientific fact that Salamanca grape vines have very few bunches of grapes on them near windows, especially on houses where there are children.

But listen!

As we look, the door of the Villa opens very quietly, and two little boys and a girl, one by one walk down the steps very slowly, dragging their feet behind them, with their eyes cast down, and a very melancholy expression spread over their faces.

How can three children in the country all have such glum looks?

Ah! I see! Each of them has a book, and from behind the Villa can be heard the voice of Miss Clotilde calling out:

"Children, hurry up and learn your lessons! If you don't know them when your Uncle Thomas comes home to hear them, look out!"

The children walked on very quietly in single file, each holding a book as if it were a torch, and each looking as solemn as if walking in a funeral procession.

Having reached an open space surrounded by a thick grove of cypresses that sheltered it from the sun, the little silent figures stopped, and sat down on a stone bench.

All opened their books with as much enthusiasm as if expecting to find a pair of hand-cuffs inside and the youngest, as if he expected something worse.

It was a deliciously cool, quiet spot, evidently chosen for them by Miss Clotilde as the best place for studying during the warm days.

But they didn't study; they weren't there five minutes when the littlest let his book fall on his knees and puffing out his cheeks began to blow making a noise like one of those little rubber balloons that when it collapses sounds like a toy trumpet. You know, you can buy them for two cents.

Seeing that the others were still looking at their books and trying to study, he said:

"Humph! I can't study any more!" Then nudging the girl with his elbow: "Don't you others call this hot?"

The child looked up angrily, and replied:

"Do keep quiet, Gigino! You know very well that I must learn my mental arithmetic."

"Maybe you ought to but I don't see how you can ever think in such heat."

At this the oldest boy chimed in. He evidently wants to impress the others with his dignity, so he asked sarcastically:

"Do you call this hot? Why Mama says that there is a freshness in the air here which sharpens the intellect."

The little one thought this over a minute and then answered:

"But when you don't feel like studying it takes more than fresh air to make you."

There was something in this decided statement that seemed to impress the others.

They stopped trying to be serious and banged down their books with remarks that sounded like these:

"Down with the history of the Middle Ages!"

"Darn mental arithmetic!"

"To grass with Latin grammar."

Then the oldest one got up, and, standing with his legs far apart, said to his brother and sister, Gigino and Giorgina, in the same tone that he had used before:

"All this trouble has come because we didn't pass our examinations."

"Well, and why didn't we?" asked Giorgina.

But Gigino interrupted laughing:

"Well we didn't any way, and the worst of it is that now we have got to take them over again."

Maurizio, who was an eloquent boy and meant in time (in a very long time if he went on in this way) to be a lawyer, now tried taking a lofty tone, so he announced:

"I do not approve of examinations." But Gigino broke in:

"You mean, examinations don't approve of you."

"Keep still while I am speaking," replied Maurizio angrily; "if you don't look out I will call you Ciondolino."

At this threat Gigino jumped up from his seat and put his hand behind him.

You see, when they were in the country, his mother made him wear an old pair of trousers to save his good ones. Unfortunately they were split in the back and sometimes a piece of his shirt stuck out like a little bob tail (ciondolino). This always made him dreadfully ashamed and when the children laughed at him it made him furious.

He tucked it in now, as quickly as he could, and sat down to listen gravely to the speech Maurizio was making.

"I do not approve of examinations because they are unjust. You may learn every word in a book by heart, all but one page, and as sure as you're alive all the questions will be about the page you've skipped."

"That's perfectly true," assented Giorgina.

"But then," suggested Gigino, "it might happen that you had studied only that one page and you could pass as well as if you had learned the whole book."

"Study, study," rejoined Maurizio, stamping his foot, "it's all very well to study, but you ought to be able to do it when you feel like it. Why don't men have to endure this slavery?"

"And women?" put in Giorgina.

"The animals," he went on, "are a thousand times happier than we. They haven't a thing to do from morning till night. Just look at dogs, cats, birds and flies, they all get on without studying the history of the Middle Ages."

"Or mental arithmetic."

"Or Latin grammar."

At the end of this convincing argument the children looked around and the very sight of their books made them feel sick; they longed, so much, to be something beside children crushed by one examination and afraid of the mere thought of another.

Giorgina, who was rather a frivolous little girl said suddenly:

"Sooner than study arithmetic I would rather be a butterfly, and fly around all day without thinking of anything."

"And I," said Maurizio, sitting down again on the bench, "would like to be a cricket."

And Gigino added:

"Rather than study Latin grammar I'd like to change into an ant."

"An ant!" exclaimed the others surprised.

"Yes," declared Gigino firmly, "one of those ants that march in a procession and haven't a thing to do all day, but make journeys."

Just then they heard a queer nasal voice behind them asking:

"Is that true?"

The children jumped and turned around with staring eyes. They hadn't the least idea where he could have come from but there stood a strange looking man. He had a big pair of spectacles on top of his nose which was a little red at the end. His collar was turned over a thick black scarf, and his angular body was covered with a long green cloak which nearly touched the ground.

He looked laughingly at the children and his eyes, which were partly hidden by two bunches of red hair, twinkled behind his spectacles like stars at night.

After gazing at them quietly for a little while he drew out a tobacco pouch from under his cloak, opened it and took a pinch of snuff. Then he gave two sneezes before saying, still in the voice that sounded like that of an old monk:

"So be it."

With that he stepped slowly backward and disappeared in the woods.