Little Lucys Wonderful Globe | Page 7

there's the vineyard."
Lucy saw on the slope of the hill above the cottage long poles such as
hops grow upon, and clusters hanging down. Men in shady, battered
hats, bright sashes and braces, and white shirt sleeves, and women with
handkerchiefs folded square over their heads, were cutting the grapes
down, and piling them up in baskets; and a low cart drawn by two
mouse-colored oxen, with enormous wide horns and gentle-looking
eyes, was waiting to be loaded with baskets.
"To the wine-press! to the press!" shouted the children, who were
politeness itself and wanted to show her everything.
The wine-press was a great marble trough with pipes leading off into
other vessels around. Into it went the grapes, and in the midst were men
and boys and little children, all with bare feet and legs up to the knees,
dancing and leaping, and bounding and skipping upon the grapes, while
the red juice covered their brown skins.
"Come in, come in; you don't know how charming it is!" cried Cecco.
"It is the best time of all the year, the dear vintage; come in and tread
the grapes."
"But you must take off your shoes and stockings," said his sister,
Nunziata; "we never wear them but on Sundays and holidays."
Lucy was not sure that she might, but the children looked so joyous,
and it seemed to be such fun, that she began fumbling with the buttons
of her boots, and while she was doing it she opened her eyes, and found
that her beautiful bunch of grapes was only the cushion in the bottom
of Mother Bunch's chair.


CHAPTER IV
. GREENLAND.
"Now suppose I tried what the very cold countries are like!"
And Lucy bent over the globe till she was nearly ready to cut her head
off with the brass meridian, as she looked at the long, jagged tongue,
with no particular top to it, hanging down on the east side of America.
Perhaps it was the making herself so cold that did it, but she found
herself in the midst of snow, snow, snow! All was snow except the sea,

and that was a deep green, and in it were monstrous, floating white
things, pinnacled all over like a Cathedral, and as big, and with hollows
in them of glorious deep blue and green, like jewels; Lucy knew they
were icebergs. A sort of fringe of these cliffs of ice hemmed in the
shore. And on one of them stood what she thought at first was a little
brown bear, for the light was odd, the sun was so very low down, and
there was so much glare from the snow that it seemed unnatural.
However, before she had time to be afraid of the bear, she saw that it
was really a little boy, with a hood and coat and leggings of thick, thick
fur, and a spear in his hand, with which he every now and then made a
dash at a fish,--great cod fish, such as Mamma had often on a Friday.
Into them went his spear, up came the poor fish, which was strung with
some others on a string the boy carried. Lucy crept up as well as she
could on the slippery ice, and the little Esquimaux stared at her with a
kind of stupid surprise.
"Is that the way you get fish?" she asked.
"Yes, and seals; father gets them," he said.
"Oh, what's that swimming out there?"
"That's a white bear," he said coolly; "we had better get home."
Lucy thought so indeed; only where was home?--that puzzled her.
However, she trotted along by the side of her companion, and presently
came to what might have been an enormous snow-ball, but there was a
hole in it. Yes, it was hollow; and as her companion made for the
opening, she saw more little stout figures rolled up in furs inside. Then
she perceived that it was a house built up of blocks of snow, arranged
so as to make the shape of a beehive, all frozen together, and with a
window of ice. It made her shiver to think of going in, but she thought
the white bear might come after her, and in she went. Even her little
head had to bend under the low doorway, and behold, it was the very
closest, stuffiest, if not the hottest place she had ever been in! There
was a kind of lamp burning in the hut; that is, a wick was floating in
some oil, but there was no glass, such as Lucy had been apt to think the
chief part of a lamp, and all round it squatted upon skins these queer
little stumpy figures dressed so much alike that there was no knowing
the