Lucia Rudini | Page 6

that you are. What kind of a soldier would you make, I'd like to know, dreaming every few minutes? Come along, get up,--we must hurry back to Nana, or she will be worried."
She took his hand and together they drove the goats before them to the cottage.
[Illustration: "Together they drove the goats before them."]
Nana Rudini was waiting for them at the door. She was a little, wrinkled-up, old woman with bright blue eyes and thin gray hair. She spoke very seldom and always in a high querulous voice.
"So you're back at last, are you?" she greeted, when the children were within hearing. "Supper's been on the stove for too long. What kept you?"
"Very busy day, Nana," Lucia spoke in much the same tone she had used towards Beppi. "I had to help Aunt and Maria at market. More troops have arrived and the streets are crowded."
"Oh, sister, you never told me that!" Beppi said accusingly. "Where are they from?"
"The south mostly," Lucia replied, "fine soldiers they are too, if you can judge by their looks."
"Which you can't," old Nana interrupted shortly. "Stop your talking and come in to supper."
"Right away," Lucia promised, and hurried off to shut up her goats in the small, half-tumbled-down shack at the back of the cottage.
Supper at the Rudinis consisted of boiled spaghetti, black bread and cheese, with a cup full of milk apiece. It was not a very tempting meal, but Lucia was hungry and ate with a hearty appetite.
After the three bowls had been washed and put away in the cupboard, she helped her grandmother undress, and settled her comfortably in the green enameled bed with its brass trimmings, that occupied a good part of the small room. Lucia's mother had brought it with her from Naples, and it was the most cherished and admired article of furniture that the Rudinis owned.
"Are you comfortable, Nana?" Lucia inquired gently, as she smoothed the fat, hard pillows in an attempt to make a rest for the old gray head.
"Yes, go to bed, child," Nana replied, and without more ado she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Lucia climbed up the ladder to the loft, and was soon cuddled down beside Beppi in a bed of fresh straw. Though she persisted in her determination that her grandmother sleep in state in the best bed, she herself preferred a simple and softer resting place.
"Tell me a story," Beppi demanded; "not about fairies and silly make believes, but about soldiers."
"But there are no pretty stories about soldiers, Beppino mio," Lucia protested.
"Who wants pretty stories!" Beppi replied scornfully. "I don't--tell me an exciting one about guns and war."
"Very well I'll try, but be still," Lucia gave in, well knowing that she would not have to go very far.
"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a soldier. He had very big eyes, and he came from the south where the sun is very warm and the sky and the water are very, very blue."
"Was he brave?" Beppi interrupted sleepily.
"Oh, yes, he was very brave," Lucia replied hurriedly, "very brave, and he loved his country more than anything else in the world."
She waited but Beppi's voice commanded.
"Go on, don't stop."
"Well, one day he was sent to guard a gate of a city, and he walked up and down before it with his gun on his shoulders, and no one could pass him unless it was a friend."
She paused again. Beppi was breathing regularly.
"Old sleepy head!" Lucia whispered, and kissed him tenderly.
The story was not continued and before many minutes she was fast asleep herself.
It was an hour before sunrise when she awoke. The air that found its way into the little attic was damp and chill. Lucia crept out of bed, being very careful not to disturb Beppi, and slipped hurriedly into her clothes. With her shoes in her hand, she climbed gingerly down the ladder past her sleeping grandmother and out to the shed.
"Good morning, Garibaldi, how are you this morning?" she said as she patted the stocky little neck of her pet.
Garibaldi submitted to her caress with a condescension worthy of the position her name gave her, and the other goats crowded to the open door, eager to leave their cramped quarters.
"Not yet, my dears," Lucia said softly, "it isn't time. Here, Esther, I will milk you first. You must all be good to-day, and Garibaldi, I don't want you to go running away if I have to leave you with Beppi," she continued. "You're nothing but goats, of course, but you know perfectly well that we are at war, and that you are very important, and must do your part. Stop it, Miss, none of your pranks, I'm in a hurry," she chided the refractory Esther for an attempt at playfulness.
"There now, that's enough, I can't carry