The Metal Pig

"Will you be quiet, or I'll break your yelling head!" she said and swung the pot which she held in her hand. The boy ducked to the ground and screamed.

Then a neighbor woman came in, also with her marito on her arm. "Felicita!" she said. "What are you doing to that child?"

"The child is mine!" replied Felicita. "And I can murder him if I want to, and you too, Giannina!"

And she swung her fire pot again. The other woman raised hers to parry the blow, and the two pots clashed together, smashing to bits and scattering fire and ashes all over the room.

But the boy by that time was out of the door, across the courtyard, and out of the house. The poor child ran until he had no breath left. At last he stopped before the church of Santa Croce, whose great door had opened to him last night, and he went inside. Everything there was bright. He knelt by the first tomb, the sepulcher of Michelangelo, and began to cry loudly. People passed to and fro; Mass was celebrated; yet, nobody paid attention to the boy except one elderly citizen, who paused and looked at him for a moment, then passed on like the rest. The poor child became faint and ill, overcome with hunger and thirst. At last he crept into a corner behind the marble monument and fell asleep.

Toward evening he was awakened by someone shaking him, and when he started up he saw the same elderly citizen standing before him. "Are you ill? Where is your home? Have you been here all day?" were some of the questions the old man asked him.

He answered them, and the old man took him with him to a little house in a near-by side street. It was a glovemaker's shop they entered, and there they found a woman sitting busily sewing. A little white poodle, so closely clipped that one could see her pink skin, jumped on the table and bounced toward the little boy.

"The innocent souls soon make friends with each other!" said the woman, patting both the boy and dog.

These good people gave the boy something to eat and drink, and told him he could spend the night there.